OUTDOOR ROCK and MINERAL SHOWS part 7
LARGEST FAIRBURN UNTIL 2007
NORTHWEST NEBRASKA SWAP MEET In the small Nebraska cattle town of Crawford they have a 4 day swap meet, the locals call Fairburn Days. We attended the show in 2007 which is held in September on Labor Day weekend. The entire swap is dedicated to the collecting and trading of the Fairburn Agate. They are crazy about that Agate. I tried to trade Herkimer Diamonds with them for their Fairburns; they didn’t know what a Herkimer was and didn’t care.
When talking to them I got the feeling I was the first Canadian they had ever seen. This town of 900 hardy souls is about an hours drive south of South Dakota and the rolling grass lands contain beds of Agate washed down from the Black Hills over millions of years. The government grass lands are leased by ranchers to graze their cattle and are fenced into sections. We were allowed to go out and collect in different fields. It’s quite interesting to see people wearing kneepads, down on their knees turning over every rock, hoping to find the Holly Leaf pattern of the Fairburn Agate. The Agate beds are like a big rocky beach and every rock there is an Agate. I myself spent 3 days looking, a total of 16 hours of back breaking bending to find 2 small Fairburns. The trouble is they won’t let you dig holes, so the agates on the surface have been peered and pawed at for a 100 years. We were all warned to watch out for Rattle Snakes but I don’t think any were spotted by the diehard collectors. The Shortridge Agate weighed 17 pounds and was the largest one found until April 2007 when a young fellow on an ATV found one in South Dakota that weighed 63 pounds.
NEBRASKA FAIRBURN COLLECTING LOCATION
This is a bone dry country : the town hadn’t seen any amount rain for years, even in September the temperature was in the low 90’s. Our Colorado friends Doc and Helen talked us into going there, so we dry camped beside them in the town park, the only green place for miles. This lovely town park has a stream running through it and used to have a fish hatchery. There were about 30 swappers camping there. We had a prime shady spot under some trees at the edge of the park, and used a town picnic table to set some flats of Herkimers on, but we found out there were a few unforeseen problems.
I mentioned that Crawford was a cattle town.On the other side of the trees, a hundred feet or so away, was a multi tracked railway siding used for the loading of cattle and big cattle pens. So every night lights came on, brighter than a ball diamond; we heard the bawling of cattle, men yelling at them while herding them into cars, gates slamming and cattle cars being shunted around.It sounded like the sound track of a western movie. The main train line went through the shipping yard, and past 5 level crossings in town. This line carried trains pulling coal cars, a train every 20 minutes or so it seemed, and they heartily blew their whistles at every crossing and if there were trains in the sidings, their whistles would accompany the passing train. It took several days, to get used to the racket and get some sleep. Our Colorado friends both in their 80’s didn’t complain , they just pulled out their hearing aids and didn’t hear a thing. Then on the 3rd night the wind changed direction and we all found out that confined cattle, do not have the sweetest odor in the world.
TRADING AT CRAWFORD
The show had a potluck dinner at the local arena along with an auction. I put in a big Herkimer on Matrix, my friend Doc bought it, he was the only one to bid on it. On Saturday night they had a woman singing and playing guitar, she was a very accomplished performer, and asked the crowd if we had any favorite songs. I made a suggestion: she sang Unchained Melody, up close and personal to a very embarrassed me. Donna said she had never seen my face so red.
MASTODON AT FORT ROBINSON FOSSIL MUSEUM
The area around Crawford has several good attractions Toadstool Park and the Fort Robinson Fossil Museum, that has the skeletons of two Mastodons that fought to the death and died locked together. In closing I would like to say, that the collectors out there in Nebraska and South Dakota, friendly as they are, are just attuned to one type of collecting, their beloved Fairburn Agates. So, if you ever go to Crawford Nebraska don’t expect to get rich selling Herkimer Quartz crystals.
