Association of Texas Soil and Water Conservation Districts
"Conservation Districts are the heart of what nourishes and sustains our country . . .
. . . born out of the Great Depression, a result of our nation's tremendous loss of topsoil during the Dust Bowl period."
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Past, Present and Future of Conservation Districts
"The soil conservation district is the workshop through which those who love the land pool their efforts and information in making land more stable and productive and our country more prosperous, more attractive and a better land in which to live. The fact that landowners themselves have the responsibility for petitioning for and voting in a district, formulating its program and work plan, administering its business and entering into cooperative agreements with their fellow landowners and operators, makes soil conservation districts a democracy in action."
. . . V. C. Marshall, the "Father of the Soil and Water Conservation District Program in Texas”
Evolution of the Soil and Water Conservation District Program in Texas
. . . It is that philosophy so eloquently expressed by Mr. Marshall and concurred with by other early state conservation leaders upon which Texas' soil and water conservation district program has its roots and upon which the program still operates.
The purpose of this report, written by Clyde Gottschalk, TSSWCB, in cooperation with Dale Allen, Public Affairs Specialist, Soil Conservation Service (now Natural Resources Conservation Service) and Dr. B. L. Harris, Extension Soil Specialist, Texas Agricultural Extension Service, is to trace the development of the Texas soil and water conservation district program from its genesis to the present.
To begin, the problems of wind and water erosion in Texas began to get public attention in the early 1930s at a time when the state and nation was in the midst of a great economic depression. Because the 1930s produced some of the worst dust storms the nation had ever seen and because the federal government was seeking ways to put people back to work and to encourage conservation, the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Soil Erosion Service were created. Through these mechanisms, demonstration projects were initiated to train technicians and to educate the public in ways to conserve soil resources. . . . Read more