My first visit to Agate Fossil Beds was in the early summer of 1967. I was on a field trip with my high school Earth Sciences teacher and several of my classmates. The fossil beds were not, at that time, a national monument, but were in the process of gaining that designation.

We poked around the quarries and found a few bone fragments but left them there, knowing that they were protected at this site. There was not much else there at the time.

Now there is a modern Visitor Center with very nice exhibits and a ranger on duty to answer questions. There are also paved trails to the quarries at Carnegie and University hills, as well as to a Daemonolix (Devil's Corkscrew; fossil beaver home) area near the entrance to the Monument.

We drove down to Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, looked at the exhibits in the Visitor's Center, and took a .5 mile hike around the Daemonolix exhibit near the monument's entrance. The rain had stopped by then.