Seeking Behemoth: History of the park

Foundations from old buildings on the land when it was farmland.

Nebraska as a state doesn't like anyone to forget that it is farmland. No, seriously. The mascot of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (which I have yet to find out if there is a rival school in the state...) is the huskers. Yes, as in corn. A lot of the area is flat, and either pasture land or corn. It isn't hard trying to explain to people just how much space large grazers such as rhinos would have needed because they've all seen cow pastures that stretch for miles and miles and miles.....

Ok, my point is this: Nebraska has a way of reminding us that yes, we are in farm country. Ashfall is surrounded by cow pastures, we find modern bones of farm animals from when the park was a farm, and we find other various reminders that, yes, we did used to be a farm. There are random fences, building foundations, and other random structures that seem to promise that there are ghosts from those days. So, here is how it went from a farm to a park.

In 1971, Dr. Michael Voorhies (Mike) and his wife, as geologists, were out mapping the rock formations with the permission of the farmer. They stumbled across a baby rhino jaw. When the explored further, it turned out that there was full skeleton. So they took the baby and left, not really expecting to find too much more.

A cellar near the original farm house. It was cheaper
to build a separate cellar than to add it to the house,
and so people just dug a hole and added stairs.
It is now barred off for safety reasons.

In 1978 and 1979, Mike had some funding from National Geographic, and used it to come back and explore the site further. Thankfully, he did, because they dug in and found another skeleton. And another. And another. And then there were horses and camels and birds and.... in those two field seasons, they pulled out over 200 skeletons, mostly complete and still practically 3D as if they had just laid down and died. Thankfully, the owner of the land, a farmer, was really only a farmer by hobby and made most of his money with a gas station on Highway 20 (any gas station out there is going to make a penny. If you don't get gas somewhere, you will probably run out before you see another place.) You see, the top soil isn't very productive here, but it was enough to grow a little corn and have some cows. His only rule was that they had to close the gate so the cows didn't get out, and maybe if they were feeling nice fill in the hole when they were done.

Well, 200 skeletons later they still weren't done, so some people in Omaha bought the farm, donated it to the Parks and Game department in Nebraska, who then left it in the hands (with the exception of the cost to park) of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The park opened officially with a new building in 1991, so no skeletons ever had to be removed again and we could work in any weather with no concern about the wind blowing ash in our faces. It took 10 field seasons to uncover everything in that building, and a new building was built in 2006 and opened in 2009. We now have 20-30 field seasons left of work ahead of us. Much more productive in fossils than it ever would have been as a farm.