Spanish Diggings Draw Attention
Gabriel A Bedish, Jr., free-lance archaeologist and writer from Grand Island, Neb., is now doing some preliminary basic surveying, photography and mapping of the Spanish Digging area for the Smithsonian Center, Midwestern Archaeology, Lincoln, Neb., a division of the National Park Service.
Beidsh says, “Prehistoric quarries are scattered through a region approximately 400 square miles in Platte and Niobrara counties. This region is a rectangle, 10 miles wide by 40 miles long eastward to the North Platte River. Its western end is northeast of Glendo, its western terminus near a north and south line between Guernsey and Manville.
"The Spanish Diggings proper is that portion one strikes when encountering the main quarries of the region—the Barbour, Dorsey, and Holmes quarries, about a mile in all directions from their limits in country known as the Spanish Hills.
“Currently studies are possibly pending from several well-known scientific organizations that would have the authentication of Dr. George C. Frison, Wyoming State archaeologist, at the University of Wyoming.”
PREDICTS POTENTIAL
The Spanish Diggings area was declared a National Historical Preservation's Site by the Wyoming Recreation Commission approximately two years ago, and Mr. Bedish cautions that it is a Federal felony to excavate and remove specimens from the area most of which is Federal land.
He predicts much potential for the ruins as a national park or monument and said, “You people here must preserve for the future in your state—don’t let outsiders carry away what belongs to Wyoming.”
Mr. Bedish, Dr. Frison and several associates are authoring a book regarding the High Plains and Northern Rocky Mountain and Wyoming Archaeology to be published by the University of Nebraska Press. Mr. Bedish says publication will probably not be until around 1975.