Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers' Association
Del Rio, Val Verde County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Edwards Plateau area of southwest Texas has long been associated with the sheep and goat industries of the state. Both sheep and goats were significant elements of the local economy, having been introduced to Texas by Spanish explorers and late-19th-century colonists. In 1869, rancher Phillip Palmer brought the first sheep to the Fort Clark area, and his operation grew to a flock of nearly 9,000 sheep. Within a few years, Charles Dissler began Val Verde County's goat industry, bringing his animals with him from Kimble County. In 1915, ranchers met in Del Rio to organize the Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers' Association to bring a halt to a wave of stock thefts. The organizational meeting, held at the Princess Theater on this city block, was called by five prominent ranchmen: J.B. Murrah, Johnson Robinson, E.E. Sticklen, V.A. Brown and B.M. Halbert. Sixty stockmen attended, and 30 signed the charter, originally naming the group the Sheep and Goat Raiser's Association of Texas. Members chose Murrah, of Del Rio, as the group's first president, and Julian Lacross, also of Del Rio, as secretary-treasurer. The headquarters moved to San Angelo in the 1930s, and a split within the association resulted in the creation of the rival Texas Wool and Mohair Growers Association. The two groups merged in 1935 as the Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers' Association, with a statewide agenda that included advocacy, research and promotion. Today, the association is an important trade organization and political force. Although the association had its beginning in Del Rio, the headquarters is in San Angelo, which is now more central to Texas' sheep and goat industries. (2005)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Edwards Plateau of southwest Texas became sheep-and-goat country in the decades after ranchers like Phillip Palmer and Charles Dissler introduced flocks and herds in the late 1800s. In 1915, alarmed by a wave of livestock thefts, sixty stockmen gathered at Del Rio's Princess Theater to found what became the Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers' Association. Thirty signed the charter and chose local rancher J. B. Murrah as first president; the group later moved its headquarters to San Angelo and grew into a major trade and political force.
Why it matters
The association marks the rise of organized ranching in the American Southwest, where stockmen banded together to protect an industry that defined the region's economy.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The Edwards Plateau of southwest Texas is a country of limestone hills, thin soil, and sweeping rangeland — land better suited to hardy grazing animals than to the plow. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this rugged region had become the heart of the state's sheep and goat industries, a distinctive ranching world set apart from the cattle country to its east.
The roots ran deep. Sheep and goats had first come to Texas with Spanish explorers and were reintroduced by later colonists, and by the Progressive era they had become a defining element of the local economy around Val Verde County and the town of Del Rio. This was still frontier in temperament — remote, self-reliant, and vulnerable to the lawlessness that comes with wide-open range.
It was a world where a rancher's wealth walked on four legs across unfenced miles, which made that wealth dangerously easy to steal. Out of that vulnerability would come one of the region's most enduring institutions.
People & events
The industry the association would represent was built by individuals whose names the marker preserves. In 1869 the rancher Phillip Palmer brought the first sheep to the Fort Clark area, and his operation grew until it numbered nearly nine thousand head — a substantial flock by any measure. Within a few years Charles Dissler launched Val Verde County's goat industry, driving his animals in from Kimble County to the west.
But a thriving industry drew thieves, and by 1915 a wave of stock thefts had grown severe enough to demand a collective response. That year, five prominent ranchmen — J. B. Murrah, Johnson Robinson, E. E. Sticklen, V. A. Brown, and B. M. Halbert — called a meeting at Del Rio's Princess Theater. Sixty stockmen attended, and thirty signed the charter of a new organization, first named the Sheep and Goat Raiser's Association of Texas. They chose Murrah, of Del Rio, as their first president and Julian Lacross, also of Del Rio, as secretary-treasurer.
The group's later history mirrored the industry's own consolidation. In the 1930s the headquarters moved to San Angelo, and a split produced a rival Texas Wool and Mohair Growers Association. In 1935 the two merged into the Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers' Association, taking on a statewide agenda of advocacy, research, and promotion, and growing into an important trade organization and political force.
Its place in the American story
This gathering at a small-town theater speaks to a much larger American story: the rise of organized agriculture as a force in national life. Across the country in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, farmers and ranchers discovered that individuals were powerless against problems that were collective — theft, low prices, distant markets, and indifferent politics — and that only association gave them leverage.
The specific spark here, a wave of livestock theft, connects to an even older theme in the American West: the constant struggle to impose order and property rights on open range. Where fences were few and law was distant, ranchers repeatedly banded together to protect their herds, and formal associations were the mature, lasting form of that impulse.
The industry itself is a distinctly American inheritance with deep Spanish roots, a reminder that the ranching West was shaped by cultures that arrived long before Anglo settlers. That sheep and goats came to Texas by way of Spanish colonization ties this quiet corner of the Edwards Plateau to the broader, older story of how the Southwest was settled and put to use.
If you visit
Stand on this Del Rio city block and picture the Princess Theater filling in 1915 with sixty weathered stockmen, gathered not for entertainment but to defend their livelihoods. The marker asks you to imagine an ordinary town gathering place turned into the birthplace of an institution that still shapes an entire industry.
Let the surrounding country do some of the storytelling. This is the edge of the Edwards Plateau, sheep-and-goat land for well over a century, and the landscape itself explains why an industry of grazing animals took root here rather than the cattle empires farther east.
For a road tripper crossing southwest Texas, Del Rio offers a chance to connect a single street corner to the sweep of ranching history — from Phillip Palmer's first flocks to a trade association that grew into a statewide power. Keep in mind that the association's headquarters long ago moved on to San Angelo, more central to the industry today, so what you are visiting is the origin point, not the present-day seat.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Phillip Palmer
- · Charles Dissler
- · J. B. Murrah
Themes & tags
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