Sand and Gravel
The property is owned by the Hunt family of southern Texas, who began business operations in 1860. In 1880, the family received federal deeds and land grants for thousands of acres of timber land throughout East Texas. During the period from 1900 to 1990, the Hunt family was one of the largest owners of timber land and saw mill operators in the United States. Environmental stewardship has been an important aspect of the family's values and business operations for more than 100 years.
The family eventually sold off their timberland and saw mill business operations in the early 1990s just before federal regulatory changes placed significant restrictions on the industry. Jewel Hunt, the chairman of HGRI, maintained ownership of several hundred acres of the original land-grant for the significant sand and gravel reserves existing on the property.
In addition to the engineering reports commissioned, the Hunts hired a sand and gravel company to mine the property on a limited basis. As a result of those efforts, it was determined that:
• The sand and gravel on the property is of the highest quality.
• The size and color variation of the material is the most desirable in the market place.
• The property can not only supply sand and concrete gravel for the highway and building industries (where local demand outstrips supply), it can also supply fine sand for glass manufacturing and frac sand for the oil and gas industry, where nationwide supplies are limited. The unique size and quality of the frac sand enables it to be resin-coated, and thereby utilized by the oil and gas industry in recoveries of deposits using new technologies instead of more traditional extractable methods.
• All of the material is contained from the surface to a depth of fifty feet.; the mining process is “surface mining” which uses tractors and conveyors to extract the material.