Birthday event to be held at Ashfall fossil beds

ROYAL — The Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park near Royal, Nebraska, is celebrating their 35th anniversary this year. It was 1991 when Ashfall Fossil Beds opened to public visitation for the first time, allowing people to watch paleontologists excavating Nebraska’s precious fossil resources one scrape of the knife and one swish of the brush at a time. Since that first day, tens of thousands of visitors have watched as 70 complete or nearly complete skeletons have been uncovered (with the potential for many more), along with other wonders like coprolites, burrows and dog tracks.