Agate Fossil Beds Administrative History

CHAPTER 1:
THE COOKS OF AGATE SPRINGS RANCH (continued)

Paleontological Excavations at Agate Springs Fossil Quarries

News of the Peterson findings on behalf of the Carnegie Museum spread quickly throughout the paleontological community. A missing link had been found at Agate representing a phase of the Miocene Epoch during the Tertiary Period of the on-going Cenozoic Era of Mammals. In 1905 E. H. Barbour of the University of Nebraska came to Agate on a collecting expedition funded by Charles H. Morrill of Lincoln. Barbour opened a quarry in a hillside 100 yards from Peterson's quarry. The rivalry that developed between the various collecting institutions was intense. Barbour's names for the principal hills reflect this professional jealousy: Carnegie Hill and University Hill. Amherst Point was named in 1906 when a team from Amherst College arrived to stake their claim to a portion of the quarries.

Harold Cook was present when Dr. Barbour extracted a large Daemonelix (paleocaster burrow) from a hillside one-half mile northeast of the ranch house. The skeleton of a horned antelope was enclosed in the soil. Barbour named a small creature "Syndoceros cooki" after young Harold, who had first discovered it. (The specimen may be seen today at the University of Nebraska museum.) The pair-horned rhinoceros was named Diceratherium cooki in honor of James H. Cook.

In the summer of 1907, Amherst College collectors prospecting one and one-half miles southeast of the principal quarries discovered Stenomylus bones smaller than the known Stenomylus gracilis. An excavation in 1908 revealed a rich pocket of eighteen skulls and enough disarticulated bones to reconstruct complete skeletons. In the ensuing years, other field parties uncovered an equally impressive number of skeletons. Some Diceratherium were found, as well as the principal part of Daphoenodon superbus peterson.

Harold Cook spent most of his spare time with O. A. Peterson, known as one of the most skilled fossil collectors in the United States. The Cooks also became friends with other professional paleontologists who journeyed to their remote ranch over the next thirty years. Among those institutions represented at the Agate Springs Fossil Quarries were Yale University, Amherst College, the American Museum of Natural History, Chicago Museum of Natural History, University of Chicago, Harvard University, Princeton University, Colorado Museum of Natural History, Michigan University, Kansas University, the Smithsonian Institution and many others. Fossils from the Agate quarries are in museums throughout the world. [5]* It is important to note that the Cook family, although in the midst of bitter paleontological competition, never profited from the exploitation of the Agate Springs Fossil Quarries. [6]

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* For a comprehensive history of the Agate excavations, see Dr. Robert M. Hunt, Jr. The Agate Hills: History of the Paleontological Excavations, 1904-1925. Prepared Under Contract to the National Park Service, Midwest Regional Office. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska, 1984.

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One benefit which Harold J. Cook gained from the early excavations was the inspiration for his life's work. Attending the University of Nebraska, Harold Cook first studied geology/paleontology under Dr. E. H. Barbour. In 1909, he began graduate studies at Columbia University. Combining two years of study into one, Cook conducted laboratory work at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, becoming an authority in his field.

Harold Cook's formal education ended in early 1910 when he returned to help manage the Agate Springs Ranch. His mother, Kate Graham Cook, had suffered an irreversible mental breakdown. Although Harold was needed at home, his professional development did not end. Excavations continued at the Agate Springs Fossil Quarries and contact with his peers was frequent. Harold Cook was also a voracious writer. He corresponded with scientists and was widely published in nearly all professionals journals of the day. Cook later became a lecturer at Chadron (Nebraska) State College, Western State College, Colorado; and Honorary Curator and Curator of the Department of Paleontology, Colorado Museum of Natural History in Denver.

Later in 1910, Harold married Professor Barbour's daughter, Eleanor. Harold and Eleanor Cook lived in the "Bone Cabin" until the homestead was "proved up;" then they moved to the Agate Springs Ranch House. The couple subsequently had four daughters—Margaret, Dorothy, Winifred, and Eleanor— who spent their early childhood on the ranch, experiencing the delightful stories of Grandfather Cook, famous paleontologists, and leaders of the Sioux Nation.

Social contact with the Indians, begun with Chief Red Cloud in the late nineteenth century, continued. Sioux leaders regarded James H. Cook as a friend. It was Captain Cook whom the Sioux looked to for assistance before the incident at Wounded Knee. And it was he who helped calm Indian/White tensions and who agreed to serve as agent of the Pine Ridge Agency if called upon. Sioux bands came each year to visit their friend at the Agate Springs Ranch, erecting teepees nearby to dance and play games. It was the Cook ranch that Chief Red Cloud wished to visit shortly before his death. Cook's hospitality was repaid with Sioux craft items and clothing, the foundation of today's famous Cook Indian Collection. [7]