Petrified Wood Gallery

Like many young boys, Harvey and Howard Kenfieldin, identical twins from Ogallala, Nebraska, liked to collect things. When the brothers were growing up in the 1950s, it started out as arrowheads in their pockets. As they got older, so did the things they hauled home.

Fossils became rocks and pieces of petrified wood they could polish and craft. Over the years the number of pieces grew into a unique collection that’s now on display in their hometown, the Petrified Wood and Art Gallery.

Some of the most fascinating pieces in the gallery are the hand-crafted petrified wood figures made by the brothers. They create these detailed artifacts, many made to resemble Old West buildings, with tiny pieces of petrified wood all painstakingly glued together. Locals often visit the gallery just to watch the two seniors at work. 

The gallery also now includes petrified wood and fossils on loan from many artists and collectors from around the world. Some are wood, such as the pieces from Arizona’s petrified wood forest and the Hubbard Basin in Nevada, while others are fossils that are millennia old, like the Therizinosaurus egg from Hunan Province, China.

There is also Selenite from Mexico, Brazilian Amethyst Geode, and dozens of petrified wood spheres on display. The 92 pewter figures of Native Americans, cowboys, and cavalry soldiers are particularly impressive. As well as pewter, there are also bronze and marble sculptures, many also depicting the western history of Ogallala.