Fort Worth Gallery Features Largest Meteor of Its Kind Uncovered in the State of Texas

On August 2, 1946, workers at the Gage Ranch, close to Marathon, Texas, were having lunch beside a stock tank when a large meteorite slammed into the pond that was next to them, splashing them with water and mud from the impact. When a Texas Christian University geologist by the name of Dr. Gayle Scott heard of the incident, he showed up on the scene four days later, identified the pieces of the meteorite that had split on impact, classified them as rare, and purchased a few pieces for his private collection. When he passed away in 1999, Monnig had accumulated one of the world’s largest personal collections of meteorite fragments (containing some 400 individual pieces), and today, much of those pieces are available on display at the Oscar E. Monnig Meteorite Gallery, on the campus of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.

Opening in 2003, exhibits in the gallery provide descriptions of how these cosmic rock chunks form, fall to Earth, and are discovered, not to mention man’s strange reactions when that happens. Visitors can also learn the various types of meteorites (some made of iron and nickel and some of rock, as well as a few which are a combination of the two), as well as Monnig’s passion for his collection, including detailed stories on his discoveries. Most recently, CBS DFW featured (which is now available on their YouTube Channel), this video on an Oscar E. Monnig Meteorite Gallery display of the largest meteorite ever uncovered in the state of Texas.

Beginning his collection in the 1930s, Oscar Monnig became recognized as the top meteorite expert in the Lone Star State, as well as throughout the world. He would travel throughout Texas and Oklahoma on behalf of his family’s wholesale dry-goods business, and in the process, would meet farmers, ranchers, and newspaper editors in each town, leaving stacks of flyers at general stores asking folks to notify him if they came across certain odd rocks. If they turned out to be meteorites, he would purchase them, which not only added to his collection but provided a source of cash for Depression-era farmers. The state-of-the-art facility that now bears the name for this innovator in the field includes videos, interactive computer terminals, murals, appealing displays, and text panels that convey the story of various meteorites – the stars of the gallery themselves.