Greetings from Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument

Greetings from Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument! When I moved to the Texas Panhandle from Everglades National Park, I had no idea that for the next fifty years I would be leading tours and giving talks about this wonderful place.

About 12,000 years ago, some of the first Native Americans wandered into what is today the Texas Panhandle. At that time it was far different from what we see here today. Imagine a forest of Pine, Spruce, and Juniper in an open woodland, much like we find today in Northern New Mexico. To the north, if they ventured in that direction, they would eventually find the glaciers representing the last remnants of the last Ice Age.

These prehistoric hunters were not hunting the deer which now frequent the Canadian River Breaks but instead were interested in larger game animals - the Imperial or Columbian Mammoth, an elephant which stood twelve to fourteen feet high at the shoulder and, though difficult to kill would provide much food for the group.

Today this area is a semiarid area with mesquite and juniper, far different from what these people encountered. Perhaps they first found the multicolored flint in the valley of the river, but eventually they found the outcrops high above the bluffs and here they used what digging tools they possessed to dig out the precious material which they fashioned into projectile points, knives, scrapers, drills, punches, and other useful tools.

The tour involves a short drive to a trailhead below the bluffs. From here a steep climb gets us to the quarry sites, where hundreds of pits show us the working sites where the flint was procured. A walk of about a mile round trip takes us to the top of the bluff and to the quarries. Our guide will, along the way, tell us about the various cultures who used the flint from around 12,000 years into the Twentieth Century.

It is not a strenuous climb, but well worth it to understand the story so well illustrated here.

Wes Phillips

Sincerely,
John Wesley