KANOPOLIS — As a girl growing to adulthood in Colorado, Lynn Scates Adams had heard vague stories of her great-grandfather’s twin brother, Charles Sternberg, the fossil hunter.

It wasn’t until later that she started researching her family’s history and discovered more than she ever expected.

Her family tree contained the Sternbergs and their history of fossil hunting and the Scates, one of Ellsworth County’s founding families. A cemetery south of Kanopolis carries the Scates name.

“I just fell in love with the history,” Lynn said of her reaction 20 years ago after reading “The Life of a Fossil Hunter” by Charles Sternberg.

“It wasn’t about fossils. It was about adventure. It’s a fascinating book.”

Her appreciation of the past has brought her to Kanopolis and Fort Harker three times. The first time was in 2003, when local historian Jim Gray showed her places of significance to her family. The third time was several weeks ago, when nine of the Scates cousins from Kansas City, Omaha, Phoenix, Denver, Montana and Illinois joined her. It was their first trip to central Kansas.

Lynn and her husband, Jim, a retired minister, arrived early to scout the countryside.

During a break at the Fort Harker Guardhouse Museum, their muddy clothes and boots could be seen draped over their van to dry after an outing in search of the site where a school was established in 1867 on Scates land.

“We did have a great time of almost breaking bones in this treacherous territory,” Lynn said with a chuckle.

On the Sternberg side, George Miller Sternberg was stationed at Fort Harker before becoming a U.S. Army surgeon general. He is buried at Arlington Cemetery. Maj. Theodore Sternberg was an Ellsworth attorney who is buried at Buckeye Cemetery, also in Ellsworth County.

The father of these men, the Rev. Levi Sternberg, was the founder of the Presbyterian churches at Fort Harker and Ellsworth. The Sternberg family established a ranch south of Fort Harker in 1866 with the purpose of supplying beef, dairy, eggs and vegetables to the fort. The fossil museum at Hays carries the Sternberg name.

On the Scates side, Elisha Scates — born in 1828 in Tennessee — filed a claim on Thompson Creek in the spring of 1866 while he was on a buffalo hunt with Robert Hudson, Perry Campbell and Ira Clark. By the end of the year, all four families had moved from the Manhattan area to dugouts along Thompson Creek.

“It was a dream come true to have this experience together.”
Lynn Scates Adams

Finding information on the Sternbergs was as easy as Googling their names on the internet. There Lynn was exposed to generations of fossil hunters and other distinguished ancestors. Information on the Scates family also was available.

The Sternberg and Scates families merged with the marriage of William Joseph Scates (1866-1930) and Margaret Ellen Sternberg (1889-1910). Their only son was Lynn’s grandfather, Erskine E. Scates Sr.

In 2012, Lynn and Jim established a non-profit, Creative Impact Ministries, to serve global missionaries by making documentary films. They decided to use their expertise to capture the stories of the Sternberg and Scates families in Ellsworth County.

Following her most recent visit, Lynn said it will be a couple of years before the documentary is completed, due to previous commitments. But she’s thankful for the time the cousins had to share and learn together.

“It was a dream come true to have this experience together, a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and it was a lot of fun,” she said.