Big Bone Lick State Park facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Big Bone Lick State Park |
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| Type | Kentucky state park |
| Location | Boone County, Kentucky |
| Nearest city | Union, Kentucky |
| Area | 525 acres (212 ha) |
| Elevation | 469 feet (143 m) |
| Created | 1960 |
| Operated by | Kentucky Department of Parks |
| Open | Year-round |
| NRHP reference No. | 72001585 (NRHP nomination) 100011352 (NHL designation) |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | June 13, 1972 |
| Designated NHL | December 13, 2024 |
| Designated: | 2009 |
Big Bone Lick State Park is a special place in Boone County, Kentucky. It's named after the huge fossil bones of ancient animals found there. Imagine finding bones so big they belonged to mammoths! These giant creatures were likely drawn to the area by a "salt lick." A salt lick is a place where animals can find important salts and minerals. Here, the salt came from sulfur springs.
Many other amazing animals also visited this spot long ago. These included different kinds of bison, caribou, deer, elk, horses, mastodons (like mammoths but a bit different), musk oxen, peccary (a pig-like animal), giant ground sloths, wolves, black bears, stag moose, and even saber-toothed cats. They all came to eat the plants and salty earth around the springs. Most of the fossils found here are from the Wisconsin Glacial Period, which was about 11,700 to 115,000 years ago. People have also found signs that humans lived and were buried here a long time ago.
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Exploring the Park's Past
The salt lick and its amazing fossil beds were known to the first people who lived in this area for a very long time. The park got its name because of the incredibly large bones found in the wet, marshy areas around the salt lick. Animals need salt in their diets, just like people do.
The mineral springs here are formed by water flowing through layers of limestone and shale. This water dissolves trapped salts and brings them to the surface, creating salty water called "brine." The ground near these springs was very soft and muddy. Many large animals got stuck in the mud and couldn't escape, which is how their bones became fossils.
Early Discoveries in the 1700s
Some people believe that Captain Charles le Moyne de Longueuil might have visited this site as early as 1739. He took some fossils back to France with him the next year.
In 1750, a man named Christopher Gist stopped at Big Bone Lick. He wrote in his journal about finding a huge tooth from a "large Beest" that weighed over four pounds!
Mary Draper Ingles, a brave frontier settler, was captured by Shawnee Indians in 1755. She was taken to Big Bone Lick and made to boil the salty water to make salt. The Shawnee would then trade this salt for other goods. In late October, Mary escaped with another woman and walked over 600 miles back home!
In 1765, an Indian trader named George Croghan visited the lick. He collected two six-foot tusks and other fossil bones. He later sent some bones to Benjamin Franklin as a gift. Scientists like William Hunter and Georges Cuvier studied these bones. Cuvier was the first to suggest that these animals were an extinct (no longer living) type of elephant, which he called "Mastodontes." The idea that an entire animal species could disappear forever was a new and exciting thought at the time!
Famous explorer Daniel Boone also visited Big Bone Lick around 1770. He explored the amazing fossil remains of the mammoths found there. In 1775, another visitor, Nicholas Cresswell, described finding "bones of a prodigious size" and a piece of a tusk. He even found a jaw tooth that weighed 10 pounds!
Important Finds in the 1800s
In 1807, William Clark (from the famous Lewis and Clark expedition) and his brother George Rogers Clark visited Big Bone Lick. They collected over 300 bones and teeth! William Clark sent these to President Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson then shared some of these bones with museums in Paris and Philadelphia. Studying these bones helped scientists tell the difference between mastodons and mammoths.
The Clark brothers also found three Clovis spear points. These ancient tools showed that early Native Americans hunted in this area thousands of years ago. One mastodon bone even had a cut mark on it, suggesting that the Clovis people used tools on these animals.
In 1815, a resort hotel called the Clay House opened nearby. Visitors could bathe in the mineral springs, which people thought had healing powers. Many naturalists came to find bones for museums. The Clay House closed in 1830.
In 1831, a scientist named Richard Harlan identified a new type of giant sloth from bones found at Big Bone Lick. It was later named Paramylodon harlani in his honor.
By the mid-1800s, most of the easily found fossils had been removed. In 1868, Nathaniel Southgate Shaler led a big excavation to find any remaining fossils for Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. Even later, in 1877, a 93-year-old doctor named Christopher Columbus Graham continued digging. He found seven barrels of bones and teeth!
Modern Discoveries in the 1900s
In the 1930s, William Snyder Webb and William Funkhouser did an archaeological survey. They found two ancient burial mounds and a cemetery.
From 1962 to 1967, the University of Nebraska led new excavations. They wanted to find more fossils and learn about the environment where the mammoths and mastodons lived. They uncovered over 2,000 fossils! These included bones of giant ground sloths, tapirs, mastodons, large bison, musk oxen, giant moose-like deer, caribou, elk, woolly mammoths, and horses. These fossils are now on display at the University of Nebraska State Museum. The team also found an ancient spearpoint from 8,000 to 10,000 years ago.
Later excavations in the 1980s and 1990s found human burials, ancient cooking pits (earth ovens), and the remains of a house. They also found stone tools, pottery, and animal bones. This shows that different groups of Native Americans visited the site over thousands of years, likely to make salt by boiling the brine. Salt was a very important item for trade!
How the Park Was Created
In 1950, local people started thinking about creating a park in this special area. In 1956, they bought some land and gave it to the state of Kentucky. In 1960, the Kentucky Department of Parks began building picnic areas, a shelter, and a parking lot. By 1962, the park grew to 175 acres.
Big Bone Lick State Park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. This means it's a place important to the history of the United States. A museum was built in 1990. By 2000, the park had grown to its current size of 512 acres.
In 2002, the National Park Service named Big Bone Lick State Park an official Lewis and Clark Heritage Trail Site. In 2009, it became a National Natural Landmark, recognizing its unique natural features. In 2024, it was given the even higher honor of National Historic Landmark designation. The park proudly calls itself "the birthplace of American paleontology" (the study of fossils).
Fun Things to Do at the Park
The visitors center, which opened in 2004, has cool things to see! You can explore indoor and outdoor exhibits of fossils, American art, and even a 1,000-pound mastodon skull. There's also a gift shop. The exhibits teach you about the park's geology and the history of Native Americans in the area.
The park has several nature trails. The Discovery Trail is a special one with a boardwalk that goes around a marshy bog. Here, you can see life-sized models of a woolly mammoth, a mastodon, a ground sloth, bison, and even scavengers eating old remains. The Discovery Trail winds through different habitats like grassland, wetland, and savanna. It's also easy for everyone to use.
You can also see a small herd of bison living at the park!
The park offers places for picnicking and has a campground with 62 sites if you want to stay overnight.
