Fossil Beds

(Three miles southeast) Cited as one of most prolific fossil fields of lower Pliocene age at time of discovery, these beds are about 13,000,000 years old. Geologists of Rio Bravo Oil Company found them in 1928 on C. C. Coffee Ranch, and their reports brought specialists from several major institutions to the area. The fossil bones buried here included (among others) those of a prehistoric camel, a kind of antelope, horse, bone-crushing dog, mastodon, and wild pig. Further studies led scientists in 1941 to adopt "Hemphillian" as the name for the geologic age represented by these fossils. (1970)