Agate Fossil Beds National Monument - Facilities

Visitor Center and Museum

Summer Season - 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Off Season - 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Closed Christmas, New Years, and Thanksgiving.

Trails
Open from dawn until dusk year-round.

Closures
Closed: Christmas, New Years, and Thanksgiving Days

Special Programs

From Memorial through Labor Day weekends ranger conducted walks and talks are available on request and begin in the visitors center. Subjects covered during the walks may include geology, paleontology, botany, zoology, and ranching history. The Cook Collection and fossils are common topics of ranger talks. 

Exhibits

The visitor center houses three rooms of exhibits, the Hitchcock Theater and the Cook Collection Gallery. The life size fossil diorama depicts life and death at the Agate waterhole, 19.2 million years in the past. An interactive computer tour offers visitors a glimpse of things to bee seen on the monument"s two trails. About 200 artifacts are displayed in The James H. Cook Collection Gallery, "A Window onto Lakota Life." Visitors can view special gifts given to the Cook family including a porcupine quilled tanned antelope ceremonial shirt worn by Chief Red Cloud, a memorable whetstone used by Chief Crazy Horse, and a war club used by Oglala leader American Horse at The Fetterman Massacre. Chief Red Cloud gave Cook a pipestone cannunpa( Lakota for pipe), which was used prior to negotiations of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. Two hide paintings were prepared for The Cook Collection exhibits by Lakota artists Dawn Little Sky and Martin Red Bear. The Running Water Winter Count hide painted by Dawn introduces visitors to the method that Lakota historians used to record events important to the people. Martin"s hide painting depicts events remembered by Lakota warrior participants in the 1876 Battle of the Greasy Grass or Battle of the Little Bighorn. This is a recreation of the faded original hide painting prepared by Lakota artists, including Martin"s grandfather, around 1898.