DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Mammoth Lake, out there in Brazoria County. Now, I want you to picture a hole in the ground. Not just any hole — a cavernous sand pit, the kind that swallows whole communities' worth of clay and sandy earth and sends it off to build roads and fill low places and shore up the foundations of a growing Texas town.
That's where this story starts. But I promise you, it doesn't end there. Not by a long shot.
Mammoth Lake, they call it now. And the name carries more weight than you might expect when you're just driving past. In prehistoric times, nomadic Native American tribes lived in this region, hunting the abundant game that thrived near the area's rivers.
Long before any deed was ever recorded, this land fed and sheltered people who left behind more than footprints — but we'll get to that. Anglo settlers came in the early eighteen hundreds. Then, in 1822, a man named Jared E.
Groce — an Alabama plantation owner — purchased this property from the Mexican government. Now Groce didn't hold onto it forever. He gave the land to his daughter Sarah as a present when she married William H.
Wharton, a lawyer who worked to establish the Republic of Texas and served as president of the convention of 1833. Land as a wedding gift. That was the kind of gesture that carried history inside it.
After the Civil War, the former cavern found a new kind of worth — its deposits of sand. By the nineteen forties and fifties, the community of Clute was growing fast, with industrial and chemical plants developing nearby, and that pit kept right on giving. Sand, sandy clay, plain clay — excavated and hauled off to build foundations and roads and to fill up the low-lying lands spreading out around it.
A number of residents and businesses owned the property over the years. Then, in 1986, Vernor Material and Equipment — VME — purchased it. Between 1979 and 2006, VME excavated approximately four million cubic yards of material out of that pit.
Four million cubic yards. That is a number that ought to make you go quiet for a moment. And then — in 2003 — the excavation turned up something nobody was expecting.
Bones. VME invited a team of archeologists to come out and conduct a proper dig, and what they found was a partial skeleton from a mammoth. Approximately fourteen feet high to its shoulders.
Up to seventeen feet long. Resting down in that old sand pit all that time, while roads got built above it and towns grew up around it. But the mammoth wasn't alone in the ground.
The archeologists also uncovered pottery shards and a wooden bowl — traces of those same people who had hunted the abundant game near the area's rivers so very long ago. In 2006, VME began work to convert the sand pit into a lake, meant to be used for scuba diving. So what started as a cavernous hole in the earth — shaped over millennia, dug deeper by industry, full of secrets it gave up one shovelful at a time — is becoming a place where people go down into the water to see what's there.
I'd say the ground earned that kind of attention.
What the marker says
Mammoth Lake, formerly a cavernous sand pit, has had a vital influence on the development of clute and the surrounding area. In prehistoric times, nomadic Native American tribes lived in this region, hunting abundant game that thrived near the area's rivers. Anglo settlers came here in the early 1800s. A number of significant individuals once owned this land. Jared E. Groce, an Alabama plantation owner, purchased this property from the Mexican government in 1822. He gave the land to his daughter Sarah as a present when she married William H. Wharton, a lawyer who worked to establish the Republic of Texas and served as president of the convention of 1833. A number of other residents and businesses have also owned this property. Following the Civil War, this former cavern was valued for its deposits of sand. By the 1940s and 1950s, the community of clute experienced significant growth when industrial and chemical plants developed nearby. The sand, sandy clay and clay excavated from the pit were used to build foundations and roads, and to fill up low-lying lands. Vernor material and equipment (VME), which purchased the property in 1986, excavated approximately four million cubic yards of material between 1979 and 2006. In 2003, bones were uncovered during excavation of the site. VME invited a team of archeologists to conduct a dig; they found a partial skeleton from a mammoth which was approximately 14 feet high to its shoulders and up to 17 feet long. Also uncovered were pottery shards and a wooden bowl. In 2006, VME began work to convert the sand pit into a lake to be used for scuba diving.