Brenham is in the running for the most storied American meteorite. In 1885, Frank and Eliza Kimberly claimed 160 acres of farmland in Kiowa, Kansas under the Homestead Act. Eliza noticed rocks on the farm, which she believed were meteorites, and made a rock pile on the land. After a number of years, she convinced a geologist from nearby Washburn College, F.W. Gragen, to come inspect the rocks, at which point he confirmed they were meteorites. Dr. Gragen purchased five of the specimens. Thus began a number of visits from geologists, including Robert Hay from the USGS and Francis Snow, the chancellor of the University of Kansas. Eventually, some of the Brenham meteorites that Drs. Gragen and Snow bought were sold to G.F. Kunz, the chief gemologist for Tiffany's who wrote a comprehensive history of the Brenham meteorite in June 13, 1890 in Science.

In 1923, Harvey Nininger, who would become the most famous meteorite dealer of all time but was then just a budding meteoriticist, bough♓t some Brenham pieces from the Kimbe🥂rlys, noting:

"These specimens from the 'meteorite farm' made a substantial addition to my young collection and were a substantial help to my thin bank roll when I made resales of parts of them. In 1927 I purchased a mass weighing 465 pounds, turned up by a plow boy. Ultimately I added a half ton of Brenham to my collection before the supply seemed to be exhausted."

Although a number of pieces of Brenham would continue to be found over the years, it would be decades until the next major find occurred, in September 2005, by meteorite hunters Phil Mani and Steve Arnold. Knowing the history of the Brenham "meteorite farm" and equipped with modern metal detectors, Mani and Arnold found the largest Brenham piece in existence: a 1,433 pound flight-oriented mass that would eventually make its way into exhibition at Space Center Houston. Over a number of months, Mani and Arnold found 36 meteorites in the Brenham strewn field, only 4 of which contained only iron and no silicates, a meteorite known as a siderite and extremely rare when 🐼coming from a known pallasite. The end piece offered here in from one of those siderites, cut to reveal an aesthetic "hole" at the center.

The Brenham meteorite created the Haviland Meteor Crater, one of only three authenticated meteor craters in the United States and the only one created by a pallasite. As pieces of Brenham have been found in the burial mounds of Ho꧙pewell Indians in Little Miami Valley, OH, over 1,000 miles away and more than 1,500 years old, we can infer that Brenham meteorites and their metal were revered objects for Native Americans. Indeed, as meteorites were the main source of iron for ancient people, some pieces were used to make knives, jewelry, chisels, buttons, and beads. As the nickel in these meteorites created a strong and often rust-resistant metal, it would have been very highly prized.

REFERENCES:

Noda, Mitch. "Brenham, Kansas Meteorite Farm." Meteorite Times Magazine, May 1, 2024.