Agate Fossil Beds National Monument is an internationally recognized fossil site. However, as a place, Agate is so much more. The landscape surrounding the fossil beds has been a site of change for millions of years. The relationship between land, weather, ecology and mammals in the Agate area has been a stage of continual change over time. Agate has also been a home to people like James Cook and his wife, Kate; great leaders of great nations like Red Cloud and American Horse. A place where people have lived raised families and died. The record that is preserved in this cultural landscape not only reflects the diverse history of change and evolution, but also the struggles of existence in a region with so many extremes.
Agate is also a place of interaction, reflective of both the natural and cultural realms. For Agate has been a meeting place between weather and sediment; the exchange of ideas and memories between cultures; and a site for present generations to make contact with the past. It’s a place where tangible reminders of these interactions are present everyday. The weathering of sedimentary rock, bones becoming visible in cliffs and the gifts presented to James Cook by the Lakota Sioux are all reflective of the strong natural and cultural relationships of the Agate landscape.
Depending upon one’s cultural viewpoint, discovery will always have a direct connection to the scientific history of Agate. During the 1880’s and moving into a new century, scientists would rediscover what the Lakota Sioux and others already knew about bones preserved in what many paleontologists believe is one of the best preserved Miocene mammal sites in the world. Through the help of James and Kate Cook, the complex interactions between weather, mammals and the land would be studied by scientific field crews from places like Pittsburgh and New York City.
So, Agate is more than fossils; it is a cultural landscape that has evolved over millions of years and reflects many players; from early mammals roaming the valleys and hills, to nomadic nations of the plains and later tales of life in the American West. Agate is truly a place of history.
History & Culture
People have been part of the Agate Fossil Beds National Monument landscape for a long time, probably for at least 11,000 years. The valley landforms within the park have changed somewhat throughout time, as the climate changed and the river responded to variations in the amount of its flow and hence its channel configuration. The ecological interaction of people with the plants and animals, soils, bedrock, river and climate make for a fascinating cultural story at Agate. There is evidence of people’s presence in the park about 2,500 years ago, when they camped along the Niobrara River those ancient campsites are now evident on terraces 20-25 feet above the modern river. People were probably hunting game in the valley, collecting everything from Indian turnip to wild plums to Indian grass and replenishing their stock of stone tools. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there is evidence that people from 31 of today’s American Indian tribes used Agate valley resources representing the Apache, Arapaho, Arikara, Cheyenne, Comanche, Crow, Dakota Sioux, Kiowa, Lakota Sioux, Nakota Sioux, Omaha, Pawnee, Ponca and Shoshoni. Several sites and landscapes within the park are today considered to be sacred traditional Native American places.
The history of the Agate Springs Fossil Quarries begins with an Agate, Nebraska, family named Cook who discovered the bone hills near their ranch in the late nineteenth century. The family unselfishly encouraged institutions from around the world to come to the Agate Springs Ranch and excavate fossils. It was also the Cooks’ truthful, trusting nature that endeared them to the Ogalala Sioux who were always welcome at the Cook ranch.
As the significance of the fossil quarries became known, a central question arose: How could the Cook family best preserve and protect the scientific and historical wonders of Agate This preservation ethic almost led to the incorporation of the quarries into the Nebraska State Park System, a movement which ceased with the onset of the Great Depression. The idea of an Agate monument did not die, but gained new impetus when Harold J. Cook served as Custodian of Scotts Bluff National Monument in the mid-1930’s. This early contact with the National Park Service and the friendships established with key Park Service personnel, helped lead to the 1965 authorization of Agate Fossil Beds National Monument.
The planned development of this area failed to materialize for many reasons with problems over land acquisition are the principal culprits. Agate Fossil Beds’ cause was heralded in the mid-1970’s by the United States Senator who sponsored the park’s enabling legislation Roman Hruska of Nebraska the ranking Republican of the Interior Appropriations Committee. Senator Hruska’s initiative got the construction of permanent visitor facilities placed on the Service’s priority schedule, only to fall victim later to changing national policies.
Shifting priorities and lack of funds have been the story of the non-development of Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. Park Service policies, particularly in regard to land acquisition, unified the community against area managers. The public and politicians viewed higher Park Service management in Omaha and Washington, D. C., as lacking commitment to the remote park and unwilling to fulfill the bright promises of the early 1960’s. In fact, the park is commonly perceived in the Service as the stepchild of Scotts Bluff National Monument, the area which administers it.
A few cry for deauthorization, disappointed because the Agate Springs Ranch headquarters is not a Service-owned interpretive facility. These voices and those who belittle Agate Fossil Beds, quite simply are afflicted by the bias which perceives National Park Service units as solely historical and/or natural areas. Science and certainly paleontology, is unappreciated and misunderstood.
Nature & Science
Agate Fossil Beds National Monument is a small park in the northwest corner of Nebraska, with only 2,700 acres of federally managed land included in the 3050 acres within the park boundary. The park takes its name from thin lenses of agate (White River Silicate Group) in the area, which range in color from amber to light gray. Miocene-age rocks are exposed in the park in the bluffs above the Niobrara River wetlands and contain an excellent fossil record. The Rocky Mountains were uplifted in many pulses of deformation between 70 to 40 million years ago. Sediments from the uplifting mountains were initially deposited near the mountains and then later transported by rivers eastward onto what eventually became the Great Plains. This river-borne silt was accompanied by wind-borne volcanic ash from eastern Nevada and western Utah and the fine grained ash rich sediments were deposited in vast sheets called the White River beds.
The earliest documented bedrock at Agate dates to the Oligocene era, 34 million years ago, but most of Agate’s Oligocene deposits are well buried beneath later Miocene deposits. Oligocene-era beds are well exposed at Badlands National Park, 130 miles northeast of Agate.
During the early Miocene era, beginning about 25 million years ago, streams in the area that now includes Agate Fossil Beds National Monument shifted and cut down to produce valleys. These valleys were later filled in with sediments as the Great Plains continued to build up or aggrade. Aggradation resulted in the formation of wide savannas during the Miocene, those savannas being dotted with small water holes and the whole landscape populated with herds of animals (e.g., chalicotheres, rhinoceroses, entelodonts, beardogs, land beavers, camels, horses, pocket gophers).
Ongoing research is documenting the grass species present on the ancient savanna. A major drought occurred in the Agate area during the Early Miocene. It is believed that when many of the drought-stricken and exhausted animals came to the remaining water holes in an effort to survive, the animals collapsed and died in and around the water. As the muddy water dried, the fossil beds were formed. Agate’s older fossil layer is about 21 million years old and covered by a layer of ash and its younger bed is 20 million years old. These layers are in what are now called the Harrison and Marsland Formations.
In the last five million years the High Plains have continued to uplift to their current elevation of about 4,400 feet a.m.s.l. and the savannas have changed to the grasslands of today. During the uplifting process rivers and streams have meandered across the plains and eroded the older deposits, forming the bluffs and valleys that we see today.
The modern Niobrara valley at Agate is a complex array of Late Pleistocene and Holocene geomorphology, stratigraphy and paleosols reflecting significant climate variations over the past 12,000-15,000 years. Current research in the park is providing radiocarbon dates for the middle to late Holocene materials, documenting thousand-year-or less fluctuations between warm and cooler climates and varying amounts of annual moisture.
The agates that give the park its name are found in a thin band along ash deposits just above the Miocene bone beds and range in color from amber to light gray. This stone is a variety of quartz (silicon dioxide) called chalcedony. Iron, manganese, and/or aluminum inclusions in the original silica deposits give the agate different colors in various locations and often form dendritic “moss” patterns in the material.
Recreation
Visitors to Agate Fossil Beds have a unique opportunity to explore both the natural and cultural wonders of the park through interpretive exhibits and hiking trails. In 1998, the National Park Service completed a long-term project of interpretive exhibit design for the Visitor Center and Museum. In the main room of the park’s museum, visitors can look at reproductions of Miocene mammal skeletons, an original slab of bones taken from the fossil hills and a number of interactive exhibits describing early field excavations, animal behavior and bone anaylsis.
The James Cook Gallery of Lakota culture is also on display in the Visitor Center and Museum. This gallery is an awesome tribute to Cook’s friendship with old friends such as Red Cloud and American Horse. Visitors are often taken with the beauty of the bead and quill work or reflect upon the stories of life and culture through artifacts inside the gallery.
For birders, the park’s two hiking trails are great for observing over 140 species birds who migrate through or call Agate home. Both trails, the Fossil Hills and the Daemonelix provide an excellent opportunity to see the wildlife, wildflowers and the geology of the Niobrara Valley.
Getting There
By Plane
Nearest air service is available through Western Nebraska Regional Airport in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, approximately 50 miles southeast of the monument.
By Car
Visitors traveling east-west on U. S. Highway 26, turn North on State Highway 29 at Mitchell, Nebraska. The park is 34 miles from Mitchell. Visitors traveling on U. S. Highway 20, turn South on State Highway 29 at Harrison, Nebraska. The park is 22 miles from Harrison. Follow the National Park Service signs.
Getting Around
The best way to see Agate is to drive to the park and hike the trails.
Horses are allowed in the park as well. However, riders must stay on non-developed trails and service roads while in the park. Also, the National Park Service prohibits riders from using the two main parking areas (Visitor Center and Daemonelix trail-head) to saddle horses.
Bicycles are prohibited on park trails and service roads.
Traveler Facts
Contact Information
Agate Fossil Beds National Monument
301 River Road
Harrison, NE 69346-2734
Phone: 308-668-2211
Fax: 308-668-2318
Operating Hours & Seasons
Daily, year-round: 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; closed Christmas, New Years and Thanksgiving Days. Hours of the Visitor Center and Museum are extended to 6:00 p.m. during the summer.
Weather/Climate
Generally sunny and dry in the summer, with occasional afternoon thundershowers. Windy and cold in the winter. Wear comfortable clothing appropriate to the season. Hats are useful against exposure to sun. Good walking shoes are recommended for use on hiking trails.
