| Walker Ranch agate and jasper. Full buckets $250 each Half buckets $150 each These buckets have been sorted to remove specimen material and only contain potential cutting and tumbling agate and jasper. The Walker Ranch was one of the most prolific ranches for the red plume agate for which the Big Bend Region is famous. Originally, it and the Woodward Ranch were owned by a man named Bird, for whom the Bird Hills are named. It was split into two ranches when Mr. Bird willed it to his stepsons, who were named Walker and Woodward. The Woodward family opened their ranch to rockhunting year round, and maintained a rock shop and an RV park there. The Walker Ranch was only open occasionally for rockhunting, often with a family member or me as a guide. The agate from the two ranches are indistinguishable, as they were separated only by a fence line. Both the Woodward and Walker ranches have now been purchased by the same owner, and they are now known as the Wood Ranch. The Wood Ranch has always been closed to rockhounds. On the Walker Ranch you could find red plume agate, black plume agate, and occasionally plume agate of other colors. There was also flower garden agate (yellow with red areas that resembled flowers, and occasionally with a little green, too). There were saginitic agates where the original sagenite (made of aragonite) sunburst was replaced by agate. There was moss agate of many colors, tube agates, fortification agates in pastel colors, lace agates, banded agates, and mixes of the above types. Some agates had quartz crystal centers or were geodes, and occasionally the crystals were amethyst. You could also find quartz geodes and specimens, calcite specimens, interesting ‘low temperature quartz’ specimens, and the yellow translucent form of labradorite at the Walker Ranch. |
| Singleton Ranch agate and jasper Full buckets $250 each Half buckets $150 each These buckets have been sorted to remove specimen material and only contain potential cutting and tumbling agate and jasper. This ranch was south of Marfa, and comprised 10 sections. It was very prolific, with 4 major agate fields that ranged in size from about 200 acres to over 640 acres. These buckets are where I put the agate and other things I found at the end of each day’s hunting. It took me 3 or 4 days of hunting to fill up a bucket. I did not search through these buckets and sort out the agates after I put them in the buckets. The agate included in the buckets can be bouquet agates in colors of yellow, peach, pink, orange, blue, green, red, and lavender. There are also lots of black and white plume agates, and some of the black plume has hematite in it. There are great fortification agates, water-level agates, and moss agates. One lovely stone included in the buckets is a breccia of what looks like a common opal that’s been filled in with chalcedony. The opal can be any color from white to peach to pink to orange to red, and the chalcedony can be anywhere from almost clear to almost black, with shades of blue in between. The Singleton Ranch was originally 3 different ranches. The heirs sold it in 2017 and the new owners divided it back into the three ranches. The new owners are very much against allowing rockhunters on their land. |
Rock Hunting in the Big Bend of Texas
