Local History
Texas Sheep and Goat Ranching Historical Markers: The Other Side of Texas Livestock
Texas ranching means more than cattle. Five historical markers trace the sheep, wool, and Angora goat industry across the Edwards Plateau.
Photo: Brandon Frie / Unsplash. Sheep and goats along a ranch fence line.
Texas has more than 16,000 official historical markers, and most of them will pass your window at 70 miles an hour. Say "Texas ranching" and people picture cattle. The plaques tell a wider story. Sheep and Angora goats paid for courthouses, banks, and whole towns across the Edwards Plateau. RoadHistorical is a Texas historical preservation platform that tells you these stops are coming before you blow past them. Here are five markers that cover the wool and mohair side of Texas livestock.
The San Angelo Marker That Explains the Whole Industry
If you only stop at one, stop at this one. Sheep and Goat Industry in Texas stands on US 87 south of San Angelo, and it compresses four centuries into a single plaque.
Spanish explorers brought sheep to the Southwest in the 1500s. The missions depended on them for food and clothing. The first Angora goats reached Texas in 1853, brought by Col. W. W. Haupt. The animals were prized for the beauty and strength of their mohair.
Modern sheep ranching in Texas starts with George Wilkins Kendall between 1857 and 1867. He crossed the coarse-wooled Mexican churro with the fine-wooled merino that European settlers brought over. Then he talked up the industry to anyone who'd listen. The land and climate of the Edwards Plateau did the rest, and after 1870 the business boomed. Ranchers fought disease, predators, poisonous plants, and drought to build their flocks.
San Angelo became the market center for those animals and their wool, and it still is. The marker sits at 7887 Hwy 87 South, San Angelo, TX. Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
Rocksprings Kept the Nation's Angora Goat Records
Rocksprings is a small town in Edwards County, out where the pavement gets lonely. For decades it held the registry for every Angora goat in the United States.
The Headquarters, American Angora Goat Breeders' Assn. marker records how that happened. The association formed in Missouri in 1898. It moved to Texas in 1924 and settled in Rocksprings in 1926. The building housed the complete registration records, plus photos of breeders and champion goats on the walls. It became a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1965. The marker has no street address, so navigate by coordinates.
Nineteen miles west, the Turner-Davis Ranch Headquarters marker shows you what that registry meant on the ground. The ranch started in 1921 on limestone bedrock and thickets of oak, mesquite, and cedar. Nobody was going to farm that. Ranchers went there specifically to raise Angora goats for mohair.
J.R. "Ruby" Davis and his wife Helen ran it until 1941. Watt W. Turner and his wife Elma Evans bought it after World War II, and Turner heirs held it until 2003. The Bracero program brought Mexican workers to the ranch in the 1950s, and the operation leaned on that labor. Carl Hyde leased the place in 1978, betting on a mohair comeback. At its peak the eight-section ranch carried 6,000 head. It ran 82 years, then sold to a developer in 2003 and got subdivided. You'll find the marker at Turner Road and Apache Trail west of town. Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
Ranchers Met in a Del Rio Theater to Stop the Thefts
Sheep and goats came to Val Verde County early. Rancher Phillip Palmer brought the first sheep to the Fort Clark area in 1869 and grew his flock to nearly 9,000 head. Charles Dissler started the county's goat industry a few years later, trailing his animals in from Kimble County.
Then came the stock thieves. In 1915, five ranchmen called a meeting in Del Rio to do something about it. J.B. Murrah, Johnson Robinson, E.E. Sticklen, V.A. Brown, and B.M. Halbert put out the call. Sixty stockmen showed up at the Princess Theater on this city block. Thirty of them signed the charter.
They named it the Sheep and Goat Raiser's Association of Texas. Murrah of Del Rio served as first president. Julian Lacross, also of Del Rio, took secretary-treasurer. Headquarters moved to San Angelo in the 1930s. A split produced a rival group, the Texas Wool and Mohair Growers Association, and the two merged in 1935. The Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers' Association marker stands on S. Main St., Del Rio, TX. Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
Kerrville Was Once Called the Mohair Center of the World
Charles Schreiner arrived in Texas from France in 1852 at age fourteen. He joined the Texas Rangers as a teenager and served from 1854 to 1857. He fought for the Confederacy, came home, and opened a general store in Kerrville in 1869.
That store turned into an empire. Schreiner moved into banking, ranching, and the marketing of wool and mohair. He built one of the first wool and mohair warehouses in Texas, which mattered more than it sounds. A warehouse let a rancher hold his clip until prices recovered instead of dumping it into a bad market. By 1900 Schreiner owned 600,000 acres. He founded Schreiner Institute, now Schreiner University. His marker is at 216 Earl Garrett St, Kerrville, TX.
The Y.O. Ranch marker out at Mountain Home carries the line that says it best. Schreiner bought the Taylor-Clements Ranch and its Y.O. brand in 1880. His venture into sheep and goats earned Kerrville a title. The marker calls it the "Mohair Center of the World." Texas still grows most of the mohair produced in the United States, and most of that comes off the Edwards Plateau. The Y.O. marker has no street address, so use its coordinates. Find it in RoadHistorical before your visit.
How RoadHistorical Finds These Markers
These five sit hundreds of miles apart on ranch highways, and four of them are easy to miss at speed. Discovery Mode solves that. Turn it on and the app notifies you as you approach a marker, so you get a warning instead of a taillight view. Stopping at one is how preservation actually works. A marker nobody visits is just a metal sign rusting on a fence line.
The AI Tour Guide answers the questions the plaque leaves open. Ask what mohair actually is, or why the Bracero program shows up on a goat ranch marker, and you get an answer standing right there. Out past Rocksprings you'll lose cell service fast, so offline mode keeps the markers and their text on your phone with no signal at all.
Start Discovering Texas History Today
RoadHistorical is free to download on iPhone and Android. Download it here and turn on Discovery Mode before your next drive. Android users can download RoadHistorical from Google Play.
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