Scott Swanson
Joe Start and Robert Rosé have big plans that have started small.
The two longtime rockhounding buddies want to enlighten the local public about the geologic wonders around Sweet Home.
Start talked enthusiastically as they set up an exhibit of moss agate collected from the Wiley Creek and the Calapooia River watersheds in the foyer of the U.S. Forest Service Sweet Home District Office recently. To make room, they removed a display of fossils and petrified wood gathered locally.
“This town was built on petrified wood,” said Care, 72, a retired teacher and USFS seasonal employee who lived in Sweet Home for 20 years before moving to Silverton Hills. He and Rosé, a retired Union Oil geologist who lives in Cascadia, put together the rock display in some cabinets constructed by Rosé’s son Jason, who lives in Sunnyvale, Calif.
Their goal is to make local residents and visitors aware of some of the minerals and geologic treasures that are plentiful around Sweet Home. Their ultimate goal is to establish a museum of local geology.
“In a lot of places in Utah, Montana, Wyoming, there are little rock museums in communities and people want to come see them,” Rosé said. That’s what they have in mind for Sweet Home, and they’re talking with Brad Newport, who owns the Holleywood Ranch petrified wood deposits on Old Holley Road, about establish one.
Start said he knows of extensive deposits of “materials,” as he and Rosé call the rocks, fossils and minerals they collect, in the Middle Santiam Wilderness, where he was a trail boss.
“If I were to build a museum, I’d go door to door to see what Grandpa has found,” he joked.
“There’s a lot out there that nobody knows about,” Rosé said.
The two started their Forest Service exhibits two years ago and they change them out every six months, in early November and in May.
“That foyer is really cool,” Start said. “It’s a perfect place for this.”
The display they were taking out last week featured fossils of leaves, fruit and other items in rocks from Little Butte, Moose Mountain and other nearby locations, and carnelian from Chandler Mountain.
The exhibits have been popular, said Nancy Shadomy, a receptionist at the Forest Service office.
“We’ve had so many people be totally amazed,” she said. “It’s so appreciated and they did this all on their own.”
Start said he was introduced to rocks when he moved to Sweet Home in 1968 and walked into a store operated by Boyd Care, a legendary local rockhound.
“He had stuff in the Smithsonian, the kind you could find in the good old days,” Start said. “I went into his shop and asked, ‘Where did this stuff come from?’
“He said, ‘Around here.’
“I said, ‘Wow, sign me up.’”
Both he and Rosé are members of the Sweet Home Rock and Mineral Society, as well as other associations of fossil and rock enthusiasts. They are especially looking forward to next July, when the American Federation of Mineral Societies, which includes a wide range of local and regional organizations dedicated to geology, mineralogy, paleontology, lapidary and other related subjects, will hold its annual show at the Albany Fair and Expo Center.
“There will probably be 250 displays of minerals, lapidary arts, fossils, petrified wood and related things,” Start said.
Though their exhibit showcases are viewable from outside the foyer, Rosé and Smart said they don’t worry about theft – though it is a problem with rocks and minerals.
“One of my best specimens of carnelian took legs when my daughter took it to Show and Tell,” Smart recalled. “Nothing lasts forever. That happens.
“I’m getting older every day. I’d like to see some of my collection go to a museum.”
There are always more rocks to hunt for, too.
“The Forest Service has been telling me they have a large jasper boulder on the Middle Santiam,” Rosé said, noting that there is space under the exhibit cases for such a specimen.