They modernized. They experimented. They wanted to make money. I will be sending out another email Joel and the others had ridden at least twice that far, every day for two weeks, and they still had two weeks to go. health (or ours!). When I die, he said, the catclaw of the world will hold the damnedest celebration you ever saw., To put it bluntly, Clayton Williams did not believe in bending to nature. Usually the old cows will teach their calves not to eat it, but sometimes well lose a new cow or calf. A rhyolite cliff, pale red in the midday sun, towered far above us this was what they called Arkansas Pasture, 20 to 25 sections of rimrock country that was used for pasturing horses in the winter. In her thirteen years at the 06, Diane had learned not only to ride but also to cut calves from a herd, handle a branding iron, and do almost anything else a working cowboy did. The other end of the nodule was Some of the complaints were ludicrous, as when one Fort Davis merchant charged that the oilman raised black cows rather than the red Herefords that were traditional to the area. trips. 10 acres in Brewster County, Texas. . bed for a while, then ventured only a little ways up each hillside. Theyre playing make-believe. Obra Denton, who had cowboyed all over the West for the past forty years, remembered spending a winter alone in the high country of northern Arizona. Kokernot Ranch is in Texas and has an elevation of 4,114 feet. Diane touched each one and called it by name. The combined two of the unsorted buckets and removed most of the stuff that wont Then he bought four more ranches in the Davis Mountains, three near San Antonio, and three in Wyoming he also owned an old family property, an irrigated farm near Fort Stockton. He also built Kokernot Field in Alpine for his team and since then, semi-pro and some minor league games have been played there. during the COVID pandemic. available. hot weather. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Or, I rockhunt will happen. Stay here and watch for strays. I interpreted that to mean Stay the hell out of our way, which I did. opalized agate that we found on the Ritchie, with much smaller opalized The following morning, a Saturday, Mr. Kokernot, as Herbert Junior was always called, made one of his infrequent appearances. Bison Texas 222 Texas 29, Bertram, TX 7860. some reason. Clayton held center stage throughout the auction, wiggling and dancing and inciting the crowd like a berserk cheerleader. King Ranch newspaper clippings. Reports - Mineral 5 Section Reports - Beading 5 Texas MIneral & Fossil Show, Conroe 6 Featured Member:. some really neat stuff that they call crayola. In addition, he was a great baseball fan and in 1946 he started a semi-pro team known as the Alpine Cowboys that produced some great college players. In Lacys thirteen years as boss, his ranch had not failed to show a yearly profit. Calves were still roped and dragged to fire for branding. What if ten or fifteen years from now his land was as barren as the land he remembered in Fort Stockton? Ive included all the hunts I know about in the Big Bend, including those led by Aaron Thomas and Jean Larremore, through April 30. Cowboys from the 06 had started carrying hacksaws and bolt cutters in their trucks and saddlebags in anticipation of locked gates. Nobody, including Mr. Kokernot himself, had ever seen all of it. Native shrubs and grasses grew here for a reason. Save; Preview; Lonestar Premier Outdoors . They think canteens are sissy. Chris said he didnt think so. them by June 15th. Kokernot 06 Ranch, Inc. Company Number 0800113664 Status In Existence Incorporation Date 20 August 2002 (over 20 years ago) Company Type Domestic For-Profit Corporation Jurisdiction Texas (US) Registered Address PO BOX 918 FORT DAVIS 79734 TX USA Alternative Names Kokernot Ranching Company (trading name, 2002-08-20 - 2002-09-27) It has gravel piles Back in those days we shipped a lot of cattle from the o6 as well as other ranches. Ranches W of Mason, area pegmatites (fee), Banks of Llano River, in gray/black limestone, Large area between Crockett, Trinity, and Groveton, E of New Caney, in area creek beds and banks, Btwn Groveton & Trinity, all surrounding area. For Store Name: Joe's Rock Farm ; Vendor: Joe's Rock Farm; No ratings found yet! I am continually surprised at the variety in Cowboys from as far away as Montana and Idaho kept in touch with the 06 and were hired on when extra hands were needed for branding or roundup. But the dream had not died completely. place, and now its pretty much summertime conditions: very hot, often windy, After almost three years of drought, two full growing seasons, fifteen inches of rain hit the ranching country in the Davis Mountains one night in June fifteen inches was an average years supply. quartz crystal covered tubes. At over 150,000 acres, the o6 is one of Texas' biggest ranches, stretching from near Alpine all the way to Interstate 10 near Balmorhea! quantities of great rocks. There had been arguments over property lines, over water rights, even over the right to host wild parties. Diane and Chris, who coached the team, were extremely attentive to the old mans needs and went out of their way to make him comfortable, but you could tell he would rather have been somewhere else. and cash. Hardly anyone recognized him in the crushed cowboy hat, necktie, brown slacks, and scuffed street shoes or realized that he was the virtual patrn of Alpine. Cattle cycles are supply and demand, pure and simple, When prices go up again, ranchers will be buying heifers to replenish their stock. How about all of them put together? All of the Walker Ranch cutting agate buckets have been sold, as well as the buckets of agate nodules. David's father moved the family to New Orleans in 1818, where young David married a German immigrant. Texas is not especially well known for its rockhounding but, despite its lackluster reputation in this area, there are still hundreds of prospective rockhounding locations to be explored. We havent needed this in a few years.. Kokernot 06 Ranch - TEXAS HISTORY NOTEBOOK Kokernot 06 Ranch Herbert Lee Kokernot, Sr. was born in 1867 to Levi Moses and Sarah Littlefield Kokernot. They also created paintings and sculptures alongside one . orange., and only part of the nodule was filled in around the tubes. This is a simple operation, a good operation, a safe operation.. The area around Palo Duro Canyon is the most promising site in the region for rockhounding. At this same auction a few years back, a group of breeders had paid $200,000 for the rights to one twelfth of the semen from a bull named Rocky Joe 650. Both Hughes brothers were awarded the Bronze Star. Herbert Lee Kokernot, Jr. was born in 1900 and succeeded his father to manage the ranch. There was some irony in the 06s resistance to change, because the Kokernot family had built its fortune during some of the most dramatic and violent changes in modern history. It doesnt take that long to use it up.. hills on that ranch. Were not extravagant. In the view of old-line ranchers, Williams took that precious resource too much for granted. Fort Davis, Texas "The o6 ranch was an incredible place for this year's Ride! Cost is $10 single and $16 for a Herbert Kokernot, Jr. was a well known businessman serving on the boards of national banks and served as County Commissioner of Jeff Davis County for sixty-five years. We stopped at a huge valley with a pipe-and-wire corral in the middle of a lovely set of mountains. trips. hunts so you can come out to the Big Bend and go on hunts ion 4 Its important we dont get behind or ahead of them, he told me. the holiday rush. In a normal year Id be attaching a schedule of my field trips to this email. Along Cowboys on the 06 shared a sort of masochistic fondness for catclaw and even asserted that some of their fattest cattle came from catclaw country, but Williams hated the shrub with an inordinate, almost demonic intensity. Similar spreaders were located all over the ranch the 06 also constructed spreaders, but there were fewer and they were not as well maintained. For more than an hour I sat there, astride an exceptionally gentle horse named Preacher, studying the spectacular terrain. Mapcarta, the open map. It's located near Kingsville, a town named after the ranch's founder, in between Corpus Christi and Brownsville. Feel Heres what Im featuring: Walker Ranch The fact is, its not like it was fifty years ago. youve gotten a good deal, Ive lowered the price of a bucket of Singleton agate ($200 per bucket). sell. rockhunts to other ranches (if indeed I am leading any) around the 06 SE of Alvord, Agua Fria Ranch, area draws, flats, slopes, Stillwell Ranch N of Big Bend Natl Park, area, Along US 67, both sides from Marfa to Presidio, Creek beds & hill slopes between Caldwell & Somerville, area, Rabbs Creek, in beds and surrounding area, 5 mi. He hires people to run around and I dont know what.. Hi Leave them blank to get signed up. The buckets of Singleton material are $125 each, since I to have some plume in it. I paid eight-two dollars an acre for this, he said. Hes done some good things, said a cowboy who was hunkered down beside a keg of nails. Im waiting for the market to adjust, he said. The floors at Sutlers rang this particular morning with the jingle of spur rowels and the stump of boot heels. Claytons party had the pizzazz of a county fair. Traditional wisdom in the highlands had it that each cow required forty acres of range each 640-acre section (ranchers out here always talked in terms of sections, not acres) would support no more than twenty head. I followed him around the ridge, and we stopped again on the opposite side of the mountain, above a draw leading up another hill to our rendezvous point. But smart guys like me are buying steers right now, today, instead of taking it like it is., From Williams vantage point, the drought was the best thing that could have happened. It was late afternoon before we headed back up top to Number Nine. "Rock Hunting on the Kokernot 06 Ranch-A Rockhound's Dream" by Terry Roberts, East Texas Gem & Mineral Society (SCFMS) From: Rock-N-Rose, 4/21 4. He was also a co-founder of the Baptist Foundation of Texas, now known as High Ground Advisors. Commercial mining never really took root in Texas and, while there are some old mining dumps to be picked over by rockhounds, most of the best rockhounding sites are in the gravels of rivers and streams and exposed hillsides. the Walker and Woodward Ranches, in addition to the pieces in the gravel piles The present Kokernot inherited his. with the gold moss on that hillside there was red moss, black plume in found agatized petrified wood in nine different color combinations. I actually wrote an entire article about how and where to find it, which Id suggest you check out: In Texas, blue topaz is only found in centrally located Mason County, particularly the towns of Mason and Grit. From the top of Polks Peak Old Glory flapped in the hot August breeze. as the agate formed. finding good stuff and having it carried back to the car for you, you Instead, he transferred them to wheatfields, feedlots, and his irrigated farm in Fort Stockton. On rocks via USPS, and every one of them got there in good shape with all of the well, if they have room for social distancing. It would be several days before Lacy and his family could make contact again with the outside world and weeks before the highway between Fort Davis and Balmorhea would be open. It was exhilarating, hunting on ground that had The locations and information contained in this article are primarily derived from academic papers, online resources, and other outside sources. Plastic drinking cups advertised Claytons gas pipeline company, Clajon. The valley we were in now was not very wide, and Ive been on a lot of field trips (over 1000 when I quit O6 is engaged in raising livestock and working quarter horses. lbs. The 06 Cienega ranch house, as it was called, was on the northmost part of the ranch, a particularly rugged area of peaks, canyons, and tumbled arrays of lava and limestone boulders. Out in West Texas two ranches are fighting a new kind of range war that pits the helicopter against the horse, the fence against the open range, the working cowboy against the modern businessman. The annual cattle auction alone brought in several million dollars a year, and while no one knew how much his commercial cattle operation brought, everyone knew it was plenty. By the time Lacy and a visitor left the Sutler, it was mid-morning and the rain had stopped. 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