Texas Agricultural Experiment Station at Spur

The Handbook of Texas lists Spur's first businesses: W. S. Campbell's mortuary and furniture store, open ten days after the town, N. A. Baker's Spur Hardware and Furniture Company, the Spur Inn, C. L. Love's dry goods store, the Brazelton-Pryor lumberyard and Oran McClure's newspaper, the Texas Spur. The school began in 1909 in one room under Professor St. John. Spur remained the county's shipping point for cotton, wheat and cattle, and in 2000 it had 1,088 people.

What the plaque says

Authorized by the Texas Legislature in 1909, seven agricultural experiment stations were established in the state. Providing facilities for agricultural scientists to develop information and procedures and solutions to regional agricultural problems, the stations and their programs ultimately affected agricultural methodology far beyond regional boundaries. Known as the Rolling Plains Experiment Station or Substation No. 7, the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station at Spur opened at this site in December 1909. Land was provided by the S. M. Swenson and Sons Land and Cattle Company. Soil and water conservation programs were developed, including a system of terracing called "syrup pan." Providing full use of rainfall and diverted water, the system resulted in vastly improved crop yields. Other programs at this station included the drafting of legislation which resulted in the establishment of the U.S. Soil Conservation Service; brush control using chemical, mechanical, and biological methods; and livestock breeding and nutrition experiments. Although this station was officially closed in 1986, results of the research conducted here are still influencing agricultural programs worldwide. (1989)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Spur-Dickens County Museum — 1.3 mi
  Dickens County's museum on the main block of Spur, a town born on November 1, 1909, when the first train reached the land a New York syndicate was selling off from the Spur Ranch.
• Crosby County Pioneer Memorial Museum — 24 mi
  Crosbyton's museum of Blanco Canyon, built in 1958 as a copy of Hank Smith's Rock House, and the place to learn the canyon's 1871 fight between Mackenzie's cavalry and Quanah's Quahadi Comanche.

More markers nearby

• Espuela — 6.6 mi
• Dickens County — 10 mi
• Dickens Springs — 11 mi
• Dickens Cemetery — 11 mi