At the Museum:
Before the Age of Man
The Stagecoach Museum is remarkable for its artifacts from when humans roamed the Lusk area. The Native American room displays tools, arrowheads, and other items illustrating the culture of humans who inhabited the area before colonization. And many historical items are displayed from the late 1800s to the middle of the 1900s when Lusk and Niobrara County were growing. But also the museum has artifacts from millennia before humans were on the scene. Among these are fossils of early plants, primitive animals, early mammals, and even dinosaurs.
Todd Hoelmer, a Lusk paleontologist, recently described the history of ancient life and identified the mammal and dinosaur fossils at the museum. He said that the mammal fossils at the museum are about 34 million years old. Typical of the animals at this time were a large group of hoofed, herbivorous mammals called oreodonts. These resembled early pigs, camels, deer, and antelope. The museum has fossil jaws, leg bones, and skulls from these early mammals.
Dinosaurs roamed the Lusk area before mammals, from 66 to 100 million years ago. The museum’s most remarkable dinosaur display is a replica of a Triceratops. This display consists of replica casts of bones found near Lusk but has metal pieces completing the skeleton.
The museum displays casts of fossilized dinosaur bones as well, such as a leg bone and skull from a Tyrannosaurus rex.
As an interesting contrast, the museum has two large turtle shells. One is from the same timeframe as the oreodonts. The other is much older and from the age of the dinosaurs.
Dinosaur fossils are usually hard to find and extract. But one dinosaur remnant, although rare, can be found lying on the surface of the ground. Some dinosaurs were plant eaters and had gizzards like chickens or turkeys. The gizzards contained pebbles or larger stones that helped break down the eaten vegetation. These rounded stones, called gastroliths, should not be confused with rocks that are smoothed from erosion by water in a stream or river. So, if you find one or more rounded stones in a place without other similar stones, you may have found dinosaur gizzard stones.
Large Gizzard Stones, left is softball sized
The Stagecoach Museum has many noteworthy historical items, such as the last stagecoach to take passengers between Cheyenne and Deadwood. But remember that the Lusk area has a history that stretches back millions of years, and that history is also displayed at the museum.