Locals called them Christmas stones for decades before anybody mined them. The stone is Louisiana opal, one of the rarest kinds of opal in the world, and the deposit was not dug until the early 1990s, by someone who knew exactly what the stones were. The mine worked only a handful of years, and the ground is private now, its exact location a closely kept secret; smaller pieces still turn up along the Sabine River and around Toro Bayou. Agate, the state mineral, litters the creek beds and country roads of the western parish. Petrified wood is plentiful too, and the prize is palm wood, Louisiana’s state fossil; the tribes of the region came here for jasper, agate and palm wood to make their tools. The original mine is PRIVATE: ask the landowner before you search any ground.
Louisiana opal, agate, petrified palm wood
Other places on the map within a couple of hours.
