Agate Fossil Beds Administrative History

A Management Assistant Arrives

Management Assistant Albert E. Werking, the first permanent employee of Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, entered on duty at Scotts Bluff on December 5, 1965. During his orientation meeting at Agate on December 16, both Holder and Werking were startled when Mrs. Cook commented that her four stepdaughters, as heirs to the estate, would sell some of their land to pay the inheritance taxes.* A subsequent meeting on December 23 with the Hoffmans revealed that the supposition was "completely unfounded." [47]

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*Dorothy Cook Meade later commented that she and her sisters agreed to sell the tract where the group of trailers were placed, across the road to the hilltops, to the National Park Service. They settled the Federal estate taxes with this money, but "there was [n]ever any discussion of selling anything else." See Mrs. Grayson E. (Dorothy Cook) Meade, interview with author, Agate Springs Ranch, 22 May 1986, transcript, p. 14.

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