Route information | ||||
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Maintained by TxDOT | ||||
Length | 155.272 mi[1] (249.886 km) | |||
Existed | by 1928–present | |||
Major junctions | ||||
South end | Big Bend National Park | |||
North end | I-10 / RM 2424 at Kent | |||
Location | ||||
Country | United States | |||
State | Texas | |||
Counties | Brewster, Jeff Davis, Culberson | |||
Highway system | ||||
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State Highway 118 (SH 118) is a 155.3-mile (249.9 km) state highway in the U.S. state of Texas that runs from Big Bend National Park north to Kent and passes through the towns of Study Butte, Alpine, and Fort Davis. SH 118 is maintained by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). The road lies entirely within the Trans-Pecos region of Texas. SH 118 is a two-lane road along its length except for a section in Alpine where the route follows the path of U.S. Route 67 and U.S. Route 90. All of the route except for the 2.8-mile (4.5 km) section between Big Bend National Park and Farm to Market Road 170 is included in the Texas Historical Commission's Texas Mountain Trail.
The road passes through or along several state and federal parks and other wildlife preservation areas. These include Big Bend National Park and Fort Davis National Historic Site of the National Park Service, Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management Area and Davis Mountains State Park operated by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and the Davis Mountains Preserve of the Nature Conservancy of Texas. The road is in the Chihuahuan Desert and passes mostly through scrub land except in the higher elevations of the Davis Mountains where the road encounters forested sky islands. The road also provides access to the University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory.