Delving into many facets of Great Plains history from settlement and railroads to fossils of ancient aquatic life can inspire both nostalgia and creativity.

[Music] [Music] So for this episode, we're at the Fick Fossil Museum in Oakley, Kansas.

There's fossils all over western Kansas.

And so this is a noted fossil museum.

We're with a, are you the curator or administrator?

I just call myself the director.

Oh, the director's good.

My name is Jodee Reed, born and raised in Oakley, Kansas.

I've been the director here for nine years.

Love meeting new people every day and working here, learning new things, learning about all of our fossils and what there still is to find in Kansas.

And I learn something new every day.

That's true.

People come in and they ask questions about the fossils, the different area, you know, the Monument Rock area, Little Jerusalem area, Keystone Gallery.

And so I learn something new every day just talking to people or researching for the answers that they're looking for.

Yeah.

And people passing through the high plains today do not realize that it was once covered by sea for basically millions of years.

Yes.

So this was started by the Ficks.

Vie and Ernest Fick.

They lived about 15 to 20 miles from the Monument Rock area.

And he was a farmer.

She was a homemaker, no children.

So she convinced him, "Get off the tractor.

Let's go fossil hunting."

And so they bought a how-to beginner's guide to look for fossils and what they were looking for.

And so they encompassed a 40 mile radius from their home.

And it encompassed Logan, Scott, Lane and Gove counties.

And in their lifetime, they collected over 11,000 different shark's teeth.

And then Mrs. Fick has done lots of artwork that's in here.

And she used to make her trees.

The tree trunks are made from fish vertebrae.

The tree limbs are fish ribs.

And then the leaves were different shells that they had collected.

Clams, clam shells, sea shells, oyster shells.

And then there's one picture that she used shark's teeth, little bits and pieces to make trees.

And it just blows my mind how creative this woman is.

Well, and so you had the fossil stuff, which are natural things, but it goes into folk art, where she's doing that, of using the natural ingredients to make the art.

So here's some more of Mrs. Fick's artwork.

She made different flower arrangements, again, using different vertebrae.

These pictures here, the tree trunks are fish vertebrae.

The tree limbs are fish ribs.

And then the leaves were made out of different shells that they had collected.

And then down here, make it look like grass and stuff, there's different seashells.

And then she made deer in some of her different pictures.

And they're made out of crinoids.

This one down here, same thing.

The tree trunks are made from fish vertebrae.

But the rocks here on this one by the pond are nasher shark's teeth.

The American flag made out of shark's teeth.

And then she did the eagle out of shark's teeth.

And that is a real snake that she used.

And then she did one with watercolor.

And then she did the replica of it with different shells.

So this is clam shells, oyster shells, whatever she could find to make her pictures.

Yeah.

And it's incredible what people can do.

I've seen folk art made out of arrowheads and all sorts of things all over.

And it's incredible.

I don't think like that.

No.

So how many years did they collect?

You said during their lifetime.

I think they started kind of in the early 60s and collected.

And she said they went out one time and found 72 nasher shark's teeth in a day.

72.

That blows my mind.

But they collected and then they had this collection in their home.

She did all the artwork and put stuff together.

This is some of her earliest work.

She used different shells and like the trees, these are different vertebrae and then different shells that they found.

Some different crinoid stuff.

Here's a picture of crinoid.

These are some vertebrae of some different animals.

And again, some more leaves and the crinoid shells.

The mention of crinoids, a lot of people, when they see pictures of them and fossil manuals and stuff, they think they're plants.

They look like a plant.

They're on a long stem and they have kind of a blossom on top.

But they're actually animals.

And so the crinoids grow on the floor of the sea or on in shallow seas mostly.

But then they die.

And there's various sorts of species or types that the crinoid stem might be so big.

And anyway, it's a hollow stem when you see it.

And it looks like a necklace the stem does.

And then the blossom on top looks a little bit different.

But there are very fine ones, very tiny ones, and then there's big ones.

Probably some of them grew to be six to eight feet tall.

But they aren't plants.

But to look at them, it's swear they were a plant of some sort of lily.

And because they used to call it, some people used to call them fossil lilies, but they're an animal.

So here we have some self-portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Fick.

She always portrayed him as an old cowboy.

And she was always very, very well put together.

This is an exhibit that we just got a few years ago.

But it's a woodworking kit that was, Mrs. Fick used to teach woodworking to the 4-H students.

So we were able to get her a briefcase and it had all of her tools and some pictures that she did, and even some of her wood carvings.

She did everything.

She did acrylic painting.

She used crayons.

She used dental wax, beeswax.

She used everything when she did her pictures.

Some of the ones with the crayons and the wax, we've had to move back because they're starting to crack and stuff.

So we want to preserve those a little bit.

So we only pull those out every so often.

So one of our unique things that we have in here is like a jewelry spinner of shark's teeth.

It starts out from the smallest and it goes clear through to the largest.

There's some more pictures that Mrs. Fick's made of some shark's teeth.

Here's a couple of crinoid pictures that we were talking about where she, as she painted them, it really pops out the features of the crinoids.

And the shark picture that's made out of shark's teeth and the vertebrae.

We have one wall that has different picture frames of shark's teeth.

She's organized them and arranged them and they had this collection in their home and people just kind of show up randomly.

And she told her husband, she said, "I can either take care of the house or I can entertain."

So she said, "We've got to get it out."

So it started out downtown in our Chamber of Commerce, which is now our senior center.

And they were there for a couple years, but it wasn't quite big enough for all the artwork she had.

And so they talked to the city and said, "If you build the building, we'll donate our collection."

And they passed a bond issue and it included the library.

So it was a great win for Oakley.

And they opened the doors here in 1975.

It is a prominent building in Oakley by all means.

So they did this, but where they found 72 sharks teeth in one day, that isn't the normal.

No, no.

So if somebody's looking for fossils, they probably won't do that.

Probably not.

Because I've known people that have looked for shark teeth all their lives and have never found any.

Yep.

And they keep getting very frustrated, but they are out there.

They are.

And I've always heard that after the monument rocks, like after a really hard rain, that they kind of, the earth kind of settles again and stuff keeps arising.

Yeah.

And that's what I told people when they're collecting things, that a tiny film of dirt, you can't see through it.

Yeah.

That after the wind blows, which we do have plenty of that out here, and occasionally rain, that is the best time to collect.

Absolutely.

And with the shark teeth, they say, well, there are so many sharks, but what most people don't, well, in the central part of the continent, don't understand that the sharks had several rows of teeth.

Yes.

And one shark had a lot of teeth.

They did.

And they said, as soon as one pops out, one pops right back in.

Yeah.

So they're constantly.

So if a shark did die by natural causes, there's going to be a lot of sharks in one area.

Yes.

In one area.

And maybe not for a mile or a couple, or be another.

Yeah.

So, so yeah.

And this is from all over the, the area, as you said, the counties here in the high plains, but also it represents a lot of fossils from other places.

We do.

We've had people stop in from everywhere.

South Carolina, I mean, you name a state, we probably have something.

And I do know we have a rock collection.

We have one rock from every state and we've displayed it in our front display, but we have stuff from all over.

People stop in and they're like, Oh, we're from South Carolina.

Do you happen to have such and such?

And they would ship it to us and we add it to our collection.

And that's great because yeah, people want them displayed.

It's, it's incredible.

We have a, um, another item that has, it's from a gentleman who stopped through and he's from Florida and he collected sharks teeth and he, he came in and he said, I've already got this case done and I've got them all labeled what the genus and species and everything is.

So he donated that to us from Florida.

Um, this showcase here is a lot of what the Sternbergs had donated to us.

Um, this was found, this piece up here, this long piece was found in Wallace County.

The Sternbergs fossil hunted out here in the late 1800s, early 1900s.

And they found this beautiful 15 foot fish and, um, Dr. Sternberg didn't have really anywhere to go with it.

So he had a classroom at the high school.

And so he used that as his exam room.

And then he taught the students at school.

And then when we opened our doors here in 1975, the school donated it to us.

So we have it on display.

So here we have the 15 foot fish that the Sternbergs found down at the monument rock area, all intact.

And on the back wall here is a mural that was painted by a gentleman from New York city.

Um, and he stopped back through here a couple of years ago to see it.

And so it's neat to have, um, the mural of what the monument rock area looked like and what sea life looked like back then.

Here is a pterodactyl wing that we have, and that was prepared by the Sternbergs.

And then here is our Mosasaur skull that we have.

Um, it's one of the rarest that was found in Gove county by a group of boy scouts just out there, out fossil hunting in a pasture.

And it's very world renowned.

It still has its eye socket intact.

And so it's one of the rarest out there still.

And if you don't know what a Mosasaur is, you need to come here and find out.

Absolutely.

And so you have recent fossils too.

There's mammoth and mastodon stuff of, you know, a hundred thousand years ago or 200,000 years ago, but yeah, brings it up almost the geologic present is what they would consider.

Here's a mastodon tusk that they found at the sand pit, which is north of town.

And then we have a mastodon leg bone that was found in Logan county, south of town here.

And then we have some different, uh, plesiosaur.

Here's like a, um, a paddle of the plesiosaur.

Yeah.

And any time you have a museum and people will see this stuff and say, where can we find this?

Absolutely.

That's one of the first questions is like, where can we go dig?

Most things are privately owned now.

So unless you know the farmer or the landowner, um, it's hard for them to get, get back on and look for it.

You should ask for land owners permission.

And you are not in the position, uh, to say, okay, I'm going to call John Doe and see if you can go out there.

That's not what you do.

These are some of our showcases, um, that have different raw minerals and rocks in it.

Um, there's some sea urchins that are found from different people.

There's a petrified Elm leaf that was found here in Logan county.

Um, Mrs. Fick has made, um, a bird, but it's all made out of different fossils that she found.

Uh, so yeah, there's, it's just an incredible place that there's something in here that everyone would like.

Absolutely.

And they would learn from all of it.

Absolutely.

The displays have also the historical stuff and artwork of the High Plains and especially Logan county.

It used to be the Fick fossil museum and then it changed to the Fick fossil and history museum.

So we, we like the, the Logan county history, the Oakley history.

Um, we have not just necessarily fossils, but we have all kinds of, you know, natural history and people history.

Yes.

Yeah.

Cultural history.

Yeah.

Because we have a replica of the sod house in here.

So you can see what a sod house is, which people don't see anymore because they aren't being made except for museum displays.

Um, this sod house was built in 1976.

It was a centennial project by the FFA chapter.

And so they took the sod cutter here.

They went across the street to our, where our Logan county hospital sits.

And before the new hospital was built, they cut the bricks and then they brought it back to site and built on location.

The sod cutter though, and a horse or oxen or mule will be hitched to this end.

And so there's the depth of, there's a blade on the bottom side of this.

So this was cutting sod.

This would be on the surface, these runners and they're polished and this U-shaped sod cutter is like a knife.

And so they were cutting sod blocks that would be about this size and not more than four inches deep because you want the root zone.

And so these would go down there and you could wait this if the ground was hard.

The sod blade on the bottom of it isn't any wider than this.

So you'd have a consistent block as far as depth and width and length you didn't because you'd get under the sod and you'd go for a while, but then you'd cut those blocks and equal lengths.

So you could lay the sod parallel this way and then parallel this way to tie them in.

So that's why the walls are so thick is, these are basically two feet walls.

But cutting the sod, you wanted it moist and sod can't be stored.

It has to be used right away because if you stockpiled it somewhere, it would dissolve before you got into the building.

So there were actually not, you don't hear much about them, but just like you see the barn raising parties or the community barn raising, they'd have community sod house building too.

It might be a lot of bachelors to get together because that's all around that they cut the sod and put it up the same day.

We also have a replica of the Prather Creamery that was here many years ago and it was down by the railroad tracks.

That's one thing that is missing in most museums, they don't understand the creamries or what they call the produce.

So sold feed, bought cream, bought chickens, bought cow hides, jackrabbits, and people hear about egg money.

But people would go to the creamery once or twice a week to sell their cream and sell their eggs and that check bought the groceries.

And I know in a lot of towns, the creamery was best located across the street from the main grocery store.

Most people have never heard of the local creamery.

And we're very fortunate to have our creamery and we had one of the granddaughters from the Prathers came in a couple summers ago and she was so excited that we still had the creamery here.

So it was nice to get that family connection to see it here.

We also have a general store with like men's, women's, and children's items that they could have purchased along the prairie.

We have a small military display which we're hoping to expand into our fire truck room and give that more recognition what it needs to be.

As you come through the general store, we have a wagon and then on the back wall we have different cattle brands of the farmers and ranchers here in the area which is really nice to see those still.

We have an Oakley High School memorabilia showcase and then in our fire truck room we have Monument High School memorabilia before they consolidated together.

So we have the separate showcases.

We have tons of Mrs. Fick's artwork still.

We have a player piano and a pump organ.

We have a pencil collection from a mortician, Don Hall, that was the mortician.

So we have a wonderful pencil collection.

We have the 1956 fire truck from the city of Oakley that was in commission until about 10 years ago when they decided to add the the new addition on for the fire truck.

Conservative people.

Yes, yes.

And then we have a teapot collection from a doctor's wife.

We have some Jerry Thomas.

We have a couple of his artwork.

Yeah, and you have sculptures in here.

We have Phyllis Hooker who was a curator.

I believe after it first opened she's done some of the sculptures we have.

We also have a sculpture of the Buffalo Bill statue of the two-time life-size bronze statue out there.

So we're fortunate to have that in here as well.

So we have a little bit of everything here.

So this is a replica of our depot.

This was where you know downtown where the where they would come in.

They have a we have a conductor in there.

We have different memorabilia from different businesses.

Oakley was a railroad town when the what was the first name?

What station was this?

Well, I've heard Blazeville.

I've heard Carlisle I've heard Cleveland and then Oakley.

So those are the four names that I believe it was 1904 that it the the depot burned and it burned quite a bit of our town.

And so a lot of the businesses were lost in that fire.

And so I don't know if that's where they got the name Blazeville and then it changed to Carlisle.

I'm not really sure how that all happened but it did burn quite a bit of our businesses in the town.

So with our railroad depot we have this car and I believe this is what would go up and down the trail or the track sorry.

These were by the railroad gang that did the maintenance on the road.

But they would carry a crew of four or five to go and do repairs.

And on the railroad tracks you'd see little offshoots where there's a little short deal of track going off because these were light enough that those guys could move it if the train was coming.

So this is a maintenance car and I remember as a kid seeing them daily go on the line between hawks and hill city.

Because you had a railroad crew in about every little town and they had a it's like the highway crews now they have the section they had to maintain and it was there because we call them putt putt cars.

I don't know what that's really not what they're called.

But you see any old movies where they had the pump?

Oh wow.

Okay it's the same deal but these were motorized.

And so as a railroad stop but it was built through here in 1868.

So it was the first railroad in the area and so it was very important because that was the main line to get to the west coast and also to open up the great plains for farmers because they had something to ship through.

So you're representing that too because Oakley is a farming community by all means.

Everything depends on agriculture and oil for this area.

And so the railroad offered ways to get back and forth and a lot of fossil collectors came out from various eastern universities and even foreign universities because they could come by rail to here instead of going by a wagon from Kansas City or St. Louis to get here.

So but the Ficks started out as just farmers and ranchers.

Absolutely.

And got an interest so it's an amateur you know avocational paleontologist.

Yes.

And so they did and artists.

Absolutely.

It used to be from the ceiling to the floor had all of her artwork out.

There's hundreds of pictures and so they remodeled about 10 years ago.

And so we have staple pictures that stay up on the walls but we try to rotate things out as often as we can so people can see all the different artwork that she has.

People were fascinated by what they found and what they brought in.

And I mean to me the Fick Museum is a great asset for Oakley.

Yeah.

Well and everybody's like that.

It's the unknown.

It's something they don't know about and people are always wanting to learn.

When the travelers come in off the roads they're not sure what to expect and they come in and they're like well we're not sure what this is you know and I so I explain what we have a little bit and they come back and and they're just in awe that we have this gem of a museum in a small town.

Yeah.

But it's our little diamond in the rough.

And there's a lot of those throughout western Kansas.

Absolutely.

There are a lot of really.

We have we have great museums out in this area.

Yeah.

And that's one of the things that I ask when people come in you know where are you traveling from and they tell me and then okay where are you going next because I can show them you know you can go to the Buffalo Bill Center you can go south and hit Little Jerusalem Monument Rocks Keystone Gallery go on south to Scott City to Jerry Thomas's Museum the El Quartelejo there's Goodlands High Plains Museum there's Colby's Museum, Hoxie, Bird City and the Motorcycle Museum in St. Francis, Fort Wallace.

You can go east and hit Wakeeney, Grinnell, Gove.

I mean you can hit them all.

Yep.

So 50th anniversary of the museum is this year.

Yes July 1st 1975 is when they open the doors so we're going to do a celebration July 1st this year.

Okay well there would be an admission for that.

We are a free museum so anybody is welcome to come celebrate with us we're going to have lots of goodies.

And you're free on most things.

We are free.

But you do accept donations.

We do accept donations but they are not required but we love our people that donate to us and help keep us going.

Well from your point of view what is your favorite thing in a museum?

Oh my gosh there's so many amazing unique things here.

I mean anything from the big fish to shark's teeth from the smallest to the largest shark picture made out of shark's teeth.

They say there's over 2,000 shark's teeth in that picture.

We have crinoid pictures.

I mean there's so many things.

I don't know if I really have one favorite thing.

And they're all unique.

They are.

They are so unique.

Most people can't pick out the most.

And I think that's one of the things we've been featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not and you know we're very world renowned that this museum has gotten its you know legacy I guess.

And so it's great to be a part of this.

So it's full of artifacts and eco facts from the ecology like the fish and stuff.

So it's natural history, ecology, cultural history.

Yeah it's all here in one package.

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