This is Mazon Monday post #335.  What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at esconi.info@gmail.com.

---

A few years ago, Charlie Shabica donated a collection of historical documents to ESCONI, and these photographs were among the materials. They document a Mazon Creek field trip in July 1974 led by Eugene Richardson Jr., Curator of Fossil Invertebrates at the Field Museum. Peabody Coal, Co. was winding down coal mining at Pit 11 at the time, with Commonwealth Edison getting ready to construct the Braidwood Nuclear Station (see Mazon Monday #282).

Others pictured on the trip include Steve Walker of Commonwealth Edison, Tookie (Paula) McCutcheon, Fred Nahas of the Peabody Coal Company, and several unidentified collectors. The photographs also capture Richardson talking with an unidentified family of fossil collectors.

The photos were taken by a Commonwealth Edison photographer for use in the company’s public relations efforts, providing a fascinating glimpse into Pit 11 collecting more than 50 years ago.

Notice the bare spoils… there’s no cottonwood, no thick weeds, no rose bushes, no poison ivy, and the none of the ever present phragmites. You can actually see the ground in most places!

What would you give to be collecting Pit 11 when it looked like this? How would you like to collect wearing shorts in the summer heat… no mosquitoes and probably very few ticks?!?