Summary of records of surface waters of Texas, 1898-1937

Abstract

The first gaging station In Texas urns established on the Rio Grande at El Paso on May 10, 1889, under the provisions of the Act of Congress of October 2, 1888, which authorized the organization of the Irrigation Survey by the United States Geological Survey. A few miscellaneous measurements of streams In central Texas, between Del Rio and Austin, were made, by C. C. Babb of the Geological Survey in 1894, 1895, and 1896. In 1897 T. U. Taylor, professor of civil engineering at the University of Texas, at Austin, began a systematic study for the Geological Survey of as many of the principal streams as the limited funds would permit. In the same year the American section of the International Water Commission began collecting records of flow of the Rio Grande in Texas. Records for the Rio Grande and some of its tributaries from 1897 to 1913, inclusive, collected by that commission under the immediate direction of W. W. Follett, United States consulting engineer, are contained in Geological Survey Water-supply Paper 358. It was not until 1915, when the State Legislature appropriated funds for stream measurement investigations by the Texas Board of Water Engineers, that a substantial beginning toward the systematic collection of stream-flow records was made. The work has been continued and enlarged gradually so that records have been collected at about 230 stations in Texas. In September 1937 86 gaging stations were being maintained in Texas by the Geological Survey and the cooperating agencies. Many miscellaneous discharge measurements have been made at other points. The records collected by the Geological Survey from 1889 to 1937 are now scattered through more than 50 reports, many of which are out of print.