Big Bone Lick State Park
Big Bone Lick State Park | |
---|---|
Type | Kentucky state park |
Location | Boone County, Kentucky |
Nearest city | Union, Kentucky |
Coordinates | 38°53′13″N 84°44′52″W / 38.88694°N 84.74778°W |
Area | 525 acres (212 ha)[1] |
Elevation | 469 feet (143 m)[2] |
Created | 1960[1][3] |
Operated by | Kentucky Department of Parks |
Open | Year-round |
NRHP reference No. | 72001585 [4] |
Added to NRHP | June 13, 1972 |
Designated | 2009 |
Big Bone Lick State Park is located at
History
18th century
The site may have been visited as early as 1739 by Captain
On March 13, 1750, Christopher Gist stopped at Big Bone Lick[13]: 34 and wrote in his journal:
- "Wednesday 13. — We set out...down the said River on the SE Side...I met two men belonging to Robert Smith at whose House I lodged...The said Robt. Smith had given me an order upon these men for two of the teeth of a large Beest, which they were bringing from towards the Falls of the Ohio, one of which I turned in and delivered to the Ohio Company...The tooth which I brought in...was a Jaw toothe of better Weight than four Pounds; it appeared to be the furtherest Tooth in the Jaw, and looked Like Fine Ivory when the outside was scraped off."[17]: 12
Gist is referring to Robert Smith, an Indian trader, who may have visited Big Bone Lick as early as 1744.[13]: 35 [14]
Mary Draper Ingles, a frontier settler, was captured by Shawnee Indians on July 30, 1755, and taken to Lower Shawneetown. After two weeks there, she was taken to Big Bone Lick and put to work boiling brine to make salt, which the Shawnee sold or traded for other goods. In late October, Ingles persuaded another woman to escape with her and they walked over 600 miles (970 km) to her home in what is now Blacksburg, Virginia.[18][19]
In 1762, amateur naturalist James Wright wrote to John Bartram describing the Big Bone Lick and some of the fossils there, although he had not been there himself, and had heard about them from the Indians:
- "There appear to be the remains of 5 Entire Sceletons, with their heads All pointing towards Each other, And near together, suppos'd to have fallen at the same time...Their heads, of which two were larger than the rest, one of these, they said a Man Could but Just Grasp in Both his Arms, with a long Nose, And the Mouth on the underside...They Judged the Creature when Alive must have been the Size of a Small House."[13]: 36
Daniel Boone reportedly visited Big Bone Lick between May and July 1770, after having been captured and released by Shawnee Indians. According to Lyman Draper, Boone "examined the wonderful fossil remains of mammoth found there."[22]: 244 On June 15, 1775, Nicholas Cresswell visited Big Bone Lick, then called "Elephant Bone Lick". His diary entry reads, in part:
- "Found several bones of a prodigious size, I take them to be Elephants, for we found a part of a tusk, about two foot long, Ivory to all appearance, but by length of time had grown yellow and very soft. All of us stripped and went into the pond to grabble for teeth and found several. Joseph Passiers found a jaw tooth which he gave me. It was judged by the company to weigh 10 pound. I got a shell of a Tusk of hard and good ivory about eighteen inches long. There is a great number of bones in a Bank on the side of this pond of an enormous size but decayed and rotten. Ribs 9 inches broad, Thigh bones 10 inches diameter. What sort of animals these were is not clearly known."[23]: 88
In 1795 future president
19th century
Clark also found three
The Clay House, a resort hotel, opened nearby in 1815, offering visitors an opportunity to bathe in the supposedly medicinal salt mineral springs. It quickly became popular among naturalists, who came to find bones for museums or private collections. Notable visitors included Yale professor Benjamin Silliman and natural history professor Constantine S. Rafinesque,[33] among others. The Clay House closed in 1830.[24]: 88 [34]
In 1831, paleontologist
By the mid-19th century most of the fossils had been removed, and in 1868 paleontologist
20th century
In 1932,
From 1962 to 1967 the
Excavations in 1981 uncovered the burials of an adult male and a child, as well as a number of
History of the park
In 1950 the Boone County Historical Society was organized and began considering the possibility of creating a park in the area. The Big Bone Lick Historical Association was formed in 1953, and in 1956 purchased 16.66 acres of land, which they deeded to the Kentucky State Commissioner for conservation. In December 1960, the Kentucky Department of Parks began constructing picnic areas, a shelter, and a parking lot. By 1962, the purchase of additional land brought the size of the park to 175 acres. The park was listed in 1972 on the National Register of Historic Places. The Big Bone Lick Historic Site Museum was constructed in 1990 at a cost of $4 million.[24]: 88 By 2000, the park had reached its current size of 512 acres.[12]: 11
In 2002, the
Activities and amenities
The visitors center (opened 2004) features indoor and outdoor exhibits of fossils, American art, and a 1,000 pound mastodon skull as well as a gift shop. Exhibits provide information on geology as well as Native American history.[44]
The park features several nature trails, including a Discovery Trail that includes a boardwalk around a marsh bog diorama with recreations of a woolly mammoth, a mastodon, a ground sloth, bison, and scavengers feeding on carcasses and skeletal remains. The Discovery Trail winds through several habitats, including grassland, wetland and savanna, and is accessible to the physically challenged.
A small bison herd is also maintained on-site.[45]
The park has picnicking facilities and a 62-site campground.
References
- ^ a b c "History". Big Bone Lick State Historic Site. Kentucky Department of Parks. Retrieved March 17, 2014.
- ^ "Big Bone Lick State Park". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior.
- ISBN 0-8131-1772-0.
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- ^ "Big Bone Lick State Park - Ice Age Mammoths of Kentucky - The Birthplace of American Paleontology". www.fossilguy.com. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
- ISBN 9780762727490. Retrieved April 25, 2013.
- ^ "Quaternary Period". Kentucky Geological Survey. University of Kentucky. Retrieved March 17, 2014.
- ^ "Mammalia, Fossils, Kentucky Geological Survey, University of Kentucky". www.uky.edu. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
- ^ "Big Bone Lick and Benjamin Frankin and Thomas Jefferson". www.uky.edu. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
- ^ "Be part of something mammoth at Big Bone Lick". Cincinnati.com. September 4, 2017. Retrieved September 25, 2018.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7864-2147-3. Retrieved September 25, 2018.
- ^ a b c d e "National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Big Bone Lick State Park," United States Department of the Interior National Park Service, February 2000
- ^ a b c d George Gaylord Simpson, "The Discovery of Fossil Vertebrates in North America," Journal of Paleontology, Vol. 17, No. 1, Jan., 1943, pp. 26-38
- ^ ISBN 978-0-916968-29-8. Retrieved September 25, 2018.
- ^ Explorers of Big Bone
- ^ a b "List of Fossils Sent by George Croghan to the Earl of Shelburne and Benjamin Franklin, 7 February 1767," Founders Online, National Archives. The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 14, January 1 through December 31, 1767, ed. Leonard W. Labaree. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1970, pp. 25–29.
- ^ The Journal of Christopher Gist, 1750–1751, From Lewis P. Summers, 1929, Annals of Southwest Virginia, 1769–1800. Abingdon, VA. Electronic version © by Donald Chesnut, 2000
- ^ Duvall, James (2009). Mary Ingles and the Escape from Big Bone Lick (PDF). Boone County Public Library. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 13, 2012. Retrieved April 3, 2014.
- ISBN 978-0-8131-5996-6. Retrieved September 25, 2018.
- ^ "Benjamin Franklin and the unknown animal," The Kentucky Geological Survey, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 2023
- ^ Conniff, Richard (April 2010). "Mammoths and Mastodons: All American Monsters". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved October 4, 2023.
- ISBN 978-0-8117-0979-8. Retrieved September 25, 2018.
- ^ MacVeagh, L. (1924) The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell 1774–1777, Dial Press, The Plimpton Press, Norwood, MA 1924
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8131-5996-6. Retrieved September 30, 2023.
- ^ Lewis to Thomas Jefferson, October 3, 1803, in Donald Jackson, ed., Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents, 1783–1854, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1962; 1:126-132.
- ^ a b c d Hedeen, Stanley. Big Bone Lick: The Cradle of American Paleontology. University Press of Kentucky, 2021.
- ^ "William Clark at Big Bone," Friends of Big Bone
- ISSN 0035-7529.
- ^ Keith Thomson, "Jefferson's Old Bones: Did the so-called father of American vertebrate paleontology believe in fossils?" American Scientist, Vol 99, No 3, May-June 2011
- ^ Earle E. Spamer and Richard M. McCourt, "Big Bone Lick: Collecting Fossils for Thomas Jefferson," Discover Lewis and Clark: The Trail, Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, 2023
- ^ a b C. Bertrand Schultz, Lloyd G. Tanner, Frank Whitmore, and Ellis Crawford, "Big Bone Lick, Kentucky: A Pictorial Story of the Paleontological Excavations at this Famous Fossil Locality from 1962 to 1966," in Museum Notes from the University of Nebraska State Museum, no. 33, March 1967
- ISSN 0002-7316.
- ISBN 978-0-8131-3440-6. Retrieved September 25, 2018.
- ^ Kenneth B. Tankersley, Michael R. Waters, and Thomas W. Stafford Jr. "Clovis and the American Mastodon at Big Bone Lick, Kentucky," American Antiquity, Volume 74, Issue 3; Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2017
- ^ Richard Harlan, "Description of the jaws, teeth, and clavicle of the Megalonyx laqueatus." The Monthly American journal of geology and natural science, 1:1831, pp. 74–76
- ^ Richard Harlan, "Description of the jaws, teeth, and clavicle of the Megalonyx laqueatus," Medical and physical researches, 1835, pp. 334–336
- ^ Justin Tweet, "On the mis-location of a giant sloth," Equatorial Minnesota, May 3, 2020
- ^ Charles Lyell, Travels in North America in the Years 1841–1842. New York: Charles E. Merrill, 1909.
- ^ Michael G. Adams, "Christopher Columbus Graham: An Extraordinary Kentuckian," 2013
- ISBN 978-1-4411-7140-5. Retrieved September 25, 2018.
- ^ Schultz, C. Bertrand; Tanner, Lloyd G.; Whitmore, Frank C. Jr.; Ray, Louis L.; and Crawford, Ellis C., "Paleontologic Investigations at Big Bone Lick State Park, Kentucky: A Preliminary Report" (1963). Science, New Series, Vol. 142, No. 3596 Nov. 29, 1963, pp. 1167-1169
- ^ David Wecker (October 19, 2002). "Big Bone Lick: Books, awards and festival give pride of Boone County its due". The Kentucky Post. E. W. Scripps Company. Archived from the original on May 11, 2006. Retrieved February 5, 2007.
- ^ Vaccariello, Linda (November 2009). "And On the Sixth Day, God Created Paleontologists". Cincinnati Magazine. p. 86. Retrieved May 18, 2013.
- ^ Big Bone Lick State Park, National Park Service
- ^ McCosham, Sarah (March 6, 2023). "The Baby Bison At This Kentucky State Park Are Beyond Adorable". Only in your State. Retrieved March 8, 2023.
External links
- Big Bone Lick State Historic Site Kentucky Department of Parks
- Big Bone Lick State Park National Park Service
- Thomas Jefferson Fossil Collection The Academy of Natural Sciences
- History and Documents from Big Bone, Kentucky