by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
If rocks could swim, Lyndon Johnson’s Sauk Rapids house would be one big aquarium.
Everywhere in his home there are rocks, rocks and more rocks – mainly agates – including big piles of them in several waterless aquariums, not to mention in umpteen glass display cases. Some of the agates and other rocks are so colorful and sparkling they shimmer in the light like dazzling tropical fish.
Johnson is a hobbyist known as a rock hound. He doesn’t sniff out rocks, but he is so trained through experience, so expert, he can spot a special rock in the blink of an eye. One day two years ago, while snorkeling in the Platte River, Johnson saw a sudden, brief flash of blue in the glimmering underwater light, like a mini flash of watery lightning. He noticed a large rock on the bottom of the water and picked it up. It was mostly covered with slimy algae, but he had an instinctive feeling it was a rock worth saving. Back on land, Johnson cleared away the algae, then he wavered and wiggled the rock, and iridescent glints of sapphire-blue sparkled off of the crystals embedded in the rock. Lo and behold, to Johnson’s amazement, what he was holding in his hand was a three-pound chunk of Labradorite, apparently the first and only one ever found in Minnesota. The rock is named for Labrador, part of Newfoundland, a Canadian maritime province where that kind of rock has often been found. Though Labradorite is not an agate, it remains one of Johnson’s most-precious finds.
His extraordinarily lucky find of that rock he attributes to his rock-hound motto: “When in doubt, dig it out.”
In 20 years, Johnson has walked an estimated 6,000 miles in his never-ending search for agates, treks that took place right here in the three-county area of central Minnesota. When not finding agates, he often spots other rare rocks or artifacts, including an agate arrowhead in mint condition expertly made by a Native American probably sometime around 200 A.D. Johnson found that artifact, one of his prized possessions, in Sauk Rapids in 2005.
First finds
Johnson grew up in Sauk Rapids and graduated from Sauk Rapids-Rice High School where he was a superb track-and-field athlete and marathon runner, a sport he continued through the years. A machinist for Luther Vector Co. in Monticello, he is the father of two adult daughters – Patience, 26; and Chrystal, 23. He is also a grandfather of 11-month-old Ezra.
Johnson’s rock-hounding started 20 years ago when he took his daughters for a walk in a gravel pit near Sauk Rapids, when they began to find some agates. They had such a good time they decided to go agate-hunting again. And again. They were hooked. The daughters are still avid agate-hunters.
Johnson’s rock-hound pet, a black lab named Buddy, loved to accompany Johnson and his daughters on their jaunts. They covered mile after mile among this area’s gravel pits, farm fields, road-construction areas and neighborhood-development sites, most of them in Sauk Rapids, Sartell and St. Cloud.
Johnson owns some very rare agates, the envy of agate collectors worldwide. Some, he estimates, are worth thousands of dollars, and he’s been offered big money for his collection, but he won’t sell. His finds have become too precious to him, like children or pets. The rarest colors in agates, Johnson noted, are blues and greens, making it a special thrill to find one of them. And Johnson, luckily, has quite a few of them among his nearly 1,200-pound agate collection.
Superior agates
What Johnson mainly looks for during his rock-sleuthing walks are Lake Superior agates, for which Minnesota is famous, so much so it’s the State Gemstone.
There are other types of agates in Minnesota, but Johnson and other collectors most prize Lake Superior agates.
The semi-precious beauties were a long time in the making – at least one billion years. In the case of Lake Superior agates, the following is how they came to be:
A billion years ago, magma (molten rock) was rising up to the surface in northern Minnesota, mainly in the area where Lake Superior is now. The lava would flow in vast streams, forming rock as it slowly cooled. Gas bubbles would form inside the lava, leaving voids. Minnesota, always rich in minerals, had a very wet climate at that time and so hot silica-rich water would bubble up and gradually fill the bubble voids layer by layer, causing the bands and other colored features in the rock.
Then, about two million years ago, the climate changed from warm to wet to cold, so cold that the first of four Ice Ages began. Mile-high glaciers moved, infinitesimally slow, south across Minnesota, helping form Lake Superior and most of the state’s lakes. In the grit and rocky rubble carried in those glaciers as they scraped and scoured the earth were the agate rocks, left behind as the glaciers slowly, slowly melted and “retreated” northward.
It’s the minerals that caused the colorful striations and other patterns in agates, minerals such as silica (quartz), iron, calcite and many others.
Finding, naming
Johnson can tell a person exactly when and where he found his agates – that is, the most outstanding ones among the thousands he owns.
He often names an agate based on the situations surrounding its find. For example, one day in May 2008, Johnson’s cousin, who caught the agate bug from Johnson, was riding with him when he convinced Johnson to stop his truck near a small field, just to check it out briefly. Who knows? There might be an agate or two in that field, he suggested.
Johnson stopped the truck; they got out. Johnson took two steps into that field and – presto! – spotted a magnificent agate, a 2-pound wonder called a “fortified tube agate.” His cousin’s jaw dropped.
“Needless to say, my cousin was mad with envy,” Johnson recalled. “I won’t repeat what he said.”
Johnson named his find the “Envy Agate.”
Other favorite Johnson finds include the following:
Peeled Heart Agate
Johnson found what he calls his “Peeled Heart Agate” at a construction site in Sauk Rapids in 1999. When he spotted it, his heart started pounding with instant excitement because he knew how far a rock-hound has to walk (thousands of miles) with even the hope of finding an agate so rare and beautiful.
The beauty is a red-and-white candy striped agate on its inside and weighs nearly two pounds. It is known as a “peeled agate” because its surface looks like someone had been chipping and peeling off layers, similar to a partially peeled onion, the result of frost, pressure and other factors.
The stone is shaped almost exactly like a human heart – thus Johnson’s name for it: “Peeled Heart Agate.”
“It’s one of my greatest finds,” Johnson said. “It’s a rare, priceless agate.”
Eye Agate
In 2010, Johnson was astonished when he found a beauty that is the dream of every agate-hunter: a 2-1/4-pound eye agate, which is one of the largest ever found in the world.
He found the wonder in a farm field between St. Stephen and Avon.
Large eye agates are very uncommon. Most eye agates are very small, weighing only an ounce or two. They are so-named because on their surfaces can be seen perfectly round “eyes” of rich color.
Of the 1,200 pounds of agates found in 20 years by Johnson, only about four pounds are eye agates.
Water-washed agate
Johnson still has a sense of awe when he ponders one of his all-time favorite finds – a seven-ounce “water-washed” agate he picked from a Benton County field in 2010.
The beautiful ovoid-shaped rock is filled with striations: rust-orange, red, white, blue, with two large eye shapes.
Just the sight of that agate sets Johnson’s mind wandering through the millions of years of geologic time.
“Just imagine the journey this agate took to look like this,” he said. “It has to have been tossed around in an old ancient sea shore or river edge at one time in its life, before the glacier dropped it in the present-day field in which it was found.”
Sharing
Johnson enjoys sharing his rock-hound hobby with others. Now and then, he gives talks, showing specimens from his collection, to school students and organizations.
Usually once a year, he sets up an exhibit of his agates at the Benton County Historical Society in Sauk Rapids.
He has also written a book especially for beginning rock hounds entitled Lake Superior Agates: What to Look For.
His Facebook page is Lyndond-agatejohnson. For more information, call Johnson at 320-761-5482.
Lyndon Johnson shines a flashlight on a 103 agatized brain coral found near Brainerd. This conglomerate rock was probably washed out of limestone during a flood, Johnson surmises.
Some of Lyndon Johnson’s favorite rock finds are (clockwise from upper right) an eight-pound agate, Johnson’s “Peeled Heart” agate, a tourmaline crystal matrix from the Black Hills, another large eye agate, a water-washed agate with its two large “eyes,” a small wonderful example of an eye agate, a chunk of Labradorite and (upper left) a 31-pound moss agate.
At his kitchen table, Lyndon Johnson sorts some of the specimens in his vast rock collection.
