Historical story: Ancient tusk is dug up in 1966

Lewis Nichols, head of the Wasco County - Dalles City Museum Commission and keenly interesting in natural history, has been busy unearthing part of a tusk that was probably about seven feet long originally.

Earl Arnold, employed by Elden Wagenblast in the Columbia district not far from Fifteen Mile Creek, found about two feet of the tusk exposed on the washed-out side of a draw.

He tried to remove the object and about two feet of it broke off. Nichols is trying to salvage the remainder and has plans to reassemble the pieces.

The tusk is lying on gravel with heavy deposits of light material above it. Nichols had to dig out a large quantity of the wet sticky material to get at the tusk with small hand tools used in the final stages. He plans to complete the job next week, meanwhile protecting it with a covering of wet burlap sacks.

Nichols then intends to shellac the tusk to help prevent its disintegration as it dries out. This was the procedure followed by a University Of Oregon Paleontology team that removed remains of a hairy mammoth from Company Hollow, a draw below the Forrest Hay place southeast of The Dalles in the spring of 1952.

Various other reports of fossil discoveries have been received. Locations of some are being withheld — hopefully until a University crew can come to this area to identify them and protect whatever scientific values may be involved.

— The Dalles Chronicle, Feb. 26, 1966.