Garden of the Gods

Location: Exit K-25 from US-40, one mile south of Russell Springs on left

GPS Coordinates: N 38º 53.961' W 101º 11.447'

Intrinsic Qualities:

Site Logistics:

• This site is unimproved and privately owned.
• It can be viewed from K-25

Garden of Gods consists of Cretaceous limestone out-cropping. The “chalk beds” of Logan County are considered one of the richest in the world for locating deposits of swimming and flying reptiles. In the world of paleontology, the name of Sternberg appears frequently. Dr. George M. Sternberg, Army Surgeon-General of the United States (during 1860‘s), visited the army posts along the Smoky Hill Trail as early as 1866. Soldiers brought him fossil bones for identification which he took, or sent back east, alerting paleontologists to this rich fossil area.

Charles H. Sternberg, a young brother of Dr. George M. Sternberg, later hunted extensively in the fossil beds of Gove, Logan and Wallace Counties, providing specimens to museums throughout the world. He taught his sons to be fossil hunters, and one, George F. Sternberg, lived with his family in Oakley from 1924 to 1927. They moved to Hays in 1927 and George became curator of the Museum of Paleontology at Fort Hays State College.

In 1900, George F. Sternberg discovered a nearly complete skeleton of a Plesiosarus, which was a 10‘ long-headed, short-necked, marine reptile on the east side of Beaver Creek in Logan County (the Bilby Ranch). Fossilized remains of ancient marine life discovered in Logan and adjacent counties can be seen at the Sternberg Museum in Hays, the Butterfield Trail Museum in Russell Springs and the Fick Fossil Museum in Oakley, Kansas.