Finding Gems in Mineral Wells, Texas

Our new home town right now is Mineral Wells, Texas. We've driven through this little town many times, but we've always been in hurry to get somewhere else. So now that we're camped here, it's nice to have the luxury of taking our time and discovering the gems of Mineral Wells. We found that it got its name from the mineral-laden waters that flow here. In fact, visitors can taste the mineral waters downtown, and pose with a pair of enormous butterfly wings.

People used to come from miles around to sip the therapeutic water from Mineral Wells. That is why there is a grand old hotel in its historic downtown. We've driven straight through this town many times before, always marveling at the 14-story grand Baker Hotel because it looks so out-of-place on this flat Texas prairie. It was built in 1929, and had 450 hotel rooms, two ballrooms, and was the first hotel swimming pool in Texas. It has been boarded up for almost 50 years, but we're glad to see that renovations have begun to bring the Baker back to its original grandeur.  In fact, we couldn't get a good picture of the Baker Hotel because it is fenced off into a construction zone. How exciting for the town of Mineral Wells when this gem comes back to life!

We also never knew about Mineral Wells Fossil Park, but today we made the drive down gravel roads to find it. It's actually an old city landfill, that after twenty years of erosion has unearthed fossils formed 300 million years ago.

We read the rules and got schooled by a couple guys that had driven four hours to spend the afternoon hunting for fossils here today. They were excited that they found the "holy grail" of fossiling here--a trilobite. The finish of the signboard at the entrance was cracked, but it showed a picture of this ancient arthropod that swam in the seas that used to cover this area.

Denisa snapped a picture of that precious trilobite fossil that they found, secured in a big plastic container.

They explained that we were much more likely to find crinoids, which are the tubular remains of sea lilies. From the signs at the entrance of the park we found that even though they look like plants, they are actually ancient animals.

Now that we are educated, we made the short walk into the pit, and immediately began finding fossils. They weren't big and they weren't rare, but it was interesting to find so many. Even though we found many of the stem-like crinoid tubes, we also found tiny round discs that were one segment of a tube. We could still see the grooves and the tiny centers of a living thing from so long ago! 

We have definitely wandered into another of God's wonders today! The highlight was Mark finding his own "holy grail." The trilobite he uncovered was perfect, and we took several pictures of it.

We also took pictures of our favorite fossil finds, including some gastropods and brachiopods. What a fun day to find a free site like this in the middle of north Texas!

Fossil finders are allowed to take home anything they unearth here. The rules at the gate state that only hand tools can be used, but we found plenty of fossils exposed from the recent rains in this area. Mark also found this rock that had a fossil indention of a larger crinoid. 

We don't usually keep the pretty sea shells and rocks we find in our travels, and we decided not to keep our fossil treasures either. We left them lying on a rock in the middle of the park. Someone will be delighted when they spot that trilobite in the center!

The reason we had planned to come this way through Texas was to visit one of our nieces and her family. But they were sick, so we entertained ourselves instead. We are used to finding our own entertainment, and we love the gems we find in unexpected places as we wander God's wonders.

As the sun was setting at our campground south of Mineral Wells, we took this picture of Old Glory framed in a lovely sunset. During a week that was filled with ugly in our nation's capitol, we were glad to be reminded that God provides beauty and peace in these United States!