Barton Warnock Visitor Center manages 56,000 acres of Big Bend Ranch State Park along the “River Corridor.”

The Lajitas Foundation built the Visitor Center in 1982 as the Lajitas Museum Desert Gardens.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department purchased the center and grounds in October 1990. The agency renamed it for Dr. Barton Warnock, a well-respected botanist in the Big Bend region.

Today, the center is the eastern entrance to Big Bend Ranch State Park. The Center introduces West Texas travelers to 570 million years of geological history. It also showcases the five biological landscapes of the Chihuahuan Desert, also known as the Big Bend.