Texas Parks and Wildlife bought the area in 1959 with Pittman-Robertson funds, the federal excise money on firearms and ammunition set aside for wildlife restoration, and it has been run since for research, management and public use. It covers 28,183 acres of the central Rolling Plains in Cottle County: mesquite uplands, shinnery oak rangeland, gravelly hills of redberry juniper and bottomland along creeks such as O. X. Creek, where cottonwoods turn in the fall. Rain averages about 22 inches a year, most of it in May and June.
The bird list is the reason most non-hunters come. Bobwhite quail and Rio Grande turkey are the game birds; scissor-tailed flycatchers, Bullock's orioles, Mississippi kites, painted buntings and roadrunners are the summer color, and vermilion flycatchers and pyrrhuloxia turn up now and then. Mule and white-tailed deer come to the watering points, Texas horned lizards and ornate box turtles cross the roads, and mountain lions, pronghorn and javelina have been seen. Western diamondback and massasauga rattlesnakes live here too.
Students and scientists use the area for research, so leave any flags, traps or markings where they are. Every visitor registers at the building at the entrance, open around the clock, and checks out on leaving. Camping is primitive, with no hookups or showers, and some roads require four-wheel drive. Group tours can be arranged with the area manager outside the hunting seasons.
The closest stops worth working into your route
Roadside plaques and monuments within a short detour