Agate Fossil Beds National Monument
National Monument · Harrison, Nebraska
Agate Fossil Beds National Monument protects a stretch of the upper Niobrara River valley in Sioux County, in the far northwest corner of Nebraska, where two low grassy hills hold one of the richest deposits of Miocene mammal fossils in the world, dated to roughly 20 million years ago. Early in the 1900s, crews from the Carnegie Museum, the University of Nebraska and other institutions quarried these hills and found dense beds of bones of small two-horned rhinos, clawed horse relatives called Moropus, giant pig-like entelodonts and bear-dogs, along with the spiral burrows of an extinct land beaver known as the Devil's corkscrews. The ranch on which they were found belonged to James Cook, a friend of the Lakota leader Red Cloud, and the visitor centre also shows a collection of Lakota objects given to the Cook family. Admission has been free. The monument is small, quiet and remote: about 20 miles of two-lane road from Harrison, with no fuel or food on site, on Mountain time.
301 River Road, Harrison, Nebraska, 69346, United States
NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The typical pattern: the visitor centre opens daily from about morning to late afternoon in summer, with shorter hours and possible closed days in winter, and closes on some federal holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. The trails are usually open from dawn to dusk even when the building is shut, but without the museum the visit is thin. Times are Mountain time. The traps: a long drive with no fuel on the way, and arriving after closing - check current hours before you set out.
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