Fossil will charge visitors for ‘edu-tourism’ episode

FOSSIL, Ore. – For decades, this town’s key attraction didn’t cost visitors a cent. Now in an attempt to rebrand itself as an “edu-tourism” mecca, the City of Fossil plans to begin charging tourists a $3 fee for collecting a maximum of three fossils from the hills surrounding the town.

Collecting fossils has always been banned at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument – located to the south. But until recently, that was not the case in this town of 460, where tourists plucked 30-million-year-old fossils from the hill behind the local high school.

The move is meant to spur economic development in Fossil, population 460, as well as in Wheeler County, the state’s least populous county and one of its poorest.

By billing itself as an “edu-tourism” gateway, the town and county hopes to capitalize on the rise in vacations built around an educational core.

Edu-tourism is a “powerful trend,” said Todd Davidson, the director of Travel Oregon, the state’s tourism commission. “It’s all part of a desire to have a more enriching experience … it’s not about going and being lectured to, but about going and experiencing,” he said.

The Oregon Paleo Project, a nonprofit, was formed by area residents intent on turning the town’s heritage into a boon.

Its board members include local movers-and-shakers like Barbara Bowerman, 91, whose husband Bill Bowerman co-founded Nike Inc. “The whole area is a perfect teaching laboratory,” she said.

The fossils, embedded in the remains of an ancient lake bed, were exposed in 1949 or 1950 when the ground near Wheeler High School was leveled to create a baseball field.

“A baby could go there and collect the state fossil,” said Bill Orr, a retired professor of geology from the University of Oregon. “One of the reasons I revere the high school in Wheeler County is that anyone can go there – and they do,” he said.

With a single blinking red traffic light and just 23 students now enrolled in that high school, Fossil could use a shot in the arm. So far, fossil-hunters have not complained about the $3 fee.

With the revenue it collects as well as with grants, the Oregon Paleo Project hopes to one day build an institute featuring classes, labs and seminars for students and visitors.