The station, near the town of Embudo along the Rio Grande in northern New Mexico, was used to develop tools and techniques for measuring stream flow in the arid, western United States.

The Embudo Stream Gauging Station was established as part of the United States Geologic Survey Irrigation Survey, a project to map water basins and collect streamflow data in an effort to make informed irrigation infrastructure decisions, directed by Clarence Dutton.

[2] While canvas tents and cots were purchased, the unanticipated cold of the higher elevation site led to the use of shallow trenches with blankets rather than cots and small cave dug in a nearby hillside for sleeping.

The training period ended in April 1889 with ten of the students taking on hydrographer positions in the Irrigation Survey.

Measurements resumed in 1912 by a new railroad agent, and in 1915 the station operation was taken on by the State of New Mexico.