Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board

Wikipedia's account says the Legislature created the board on May 29, 1939, first calling it the State Soil Conservation Board. It had five members, each from a different one of five districts. In 1949 the state's conservation zones grew from five to sixteen, and in 1965 the agency took its present name. The agency says each local district is an independent political subdivision governed by five directors elected by rural landowners, and that the state board now has seven members, five of them landowners elected by those directors.

What the plaque says

Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board In the 1930s, in the midst of the Great Depression, one of the worst sustained ecological disasters in the nation's history devastated the southern plains. Long periods of drought mixed with strong winds robbed entire farms of topsoil and completely buried others. With confusion mounting as to the cause of the dust storms, a few early soil conservationists actively sought scientific and pragmatic solutions. One outspoken advocate, Hugh Hammond Bennett, was instrumental in the earliest federal efforts to address the soil erosion problem, but more was needed. In Texas, responses to the agricultural crisis began as early as 1931 when Gov. Dan Moody called for a special soil and water conservation committee. Following several years of failed legislation to create local conservation districts and a state board to oversee the system, Gov. W. Lee "Pappy" O' Daniel signed the Texas Soil Conservation Law in 1939. Proposed by Texas conservation advocate V.C. Marshall of Bell County and the "Committee of 100," the law established local districts controlled by landowners. One of the first orders of business was to establish the state board elected by delegates from each county in the state. V.C. Marshall was elected the first chairman of the board and the board's headquarters were established in temple. From the beginning, the agency worked directly with farmers, interest groups and political leaders to responsibly conserve and protect the environment with programs focusing on water quality, brush control, pollution, drought preparedness and education. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 2.3 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.
• Mother Neff State Park — 20 mi
  A Leon River park that grew from six acres Isabella Neff left the state in her 1921 will, where Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817 built a stone tower, a pavilion and roads in the 1930s.
• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — 26 mi
  Cameron's 1892 Renaissance Revival courthouse and the 1895 St. Louis-built jail beside it, now the county museum, are listed together on the National Register.

More markers nearby

• Blackland Experiment Station, Substation No. 5 — 0.8 mi
• Thomas Edison Dixon, M.D. — 1.4 mi
• George Valter Brindley, Sr., M.D. — 1.9 mi
• Raleigh R. White, Jr., M.D. — 1.9 mi