At a Glance
The Name "Llano Estacado:"
1. It is commonly assumed that the name "Staked Plains" meant that those who crossed
the Llano Estacado used stakes driven into the ground by previous travelers to navigate it's vast
openness.
2. The Steep escarpments surrounding the Llano Estacado resembled palisades, or stakes that would have made up a fort wall.
3. Explorers and travelers drove stakes into the ground to keep their animals from wandering off and becoming lost forever.
Visual Galleries
|
The Llano Estacado:
Description and Location
Article by Randall Derrick
The Llano Estacado, or "Staked Plains," is a large, flat region of the southern High Plains
of the United States that covers 30,000 square miles of far West Texas and eastern New Mexico. It's boundaries are the
southern Escarpment of the Canadian River
in the north, the Mescalero Escarpment
of eastern New Mexico in the west, the Caprock Escarpment
in the eastern Texas Panhandle
and in the south, the Johnson
Creek branch of the Colorado
River near Big Spring on the Edwards Plateau
.
Formally it's boundaries are between 101° and 104° west longitude and 31° and 35° north latitude.
Altitudes of
the Llano Estacado in
Texas range from
4,375 feet above sea level at
Farwell in Parmer County to
2,397 at Big Spring in Howard
County. Elevation changes
decrease an average of about
ten feet per mile toward the
south-southeast.
Average
rainfall in the region is
generally less than 20 inches
per year.
Source: The Handbook of
Texas Online
|
|
|
|
|
