Big Bone Lick

The Boone County Public Library is hosting a traveling exhibition about the famous explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.  The pair is best known for their cross-country expedition to the Pacific Ocean.  However, the explorers also visited Big Bone Lick in separate trips.

The exhibition titled “Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country” runs from July 1 through August 13, 2010.  It’s held at the Main Library at 1786 Burlington Pike, Burlington, KY.  The exhibit tells the story of Lewis & Clark’s 1804-1806 journey from the point of view of the Native Americans who lived along the route.

The exhibit has many special programs scheduled throughout July including a talk about Lewis and Clark visiting Big Bone Lick.  Stanley Hedeen, author of "Big Bone Lick: Cradle of American Paleontology," hosts the program at 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 28, at the Main Library.

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson asked Lewis to stop at Big Bone Lick to collect bones and send them back to Jefferson before meeting up with Clark in Louisville.  Unfortunately the bones were lost when the boats carrying them sank at Natchez, Mississippi.

Undeterred, Jefferson sent Clark to Big Bone Lick in 1807 to retrieve another set of bones.  In 1808, Jefferson finally received his long-awaited shipment and arranged 300 big bones on the floor in a room at the White House.  (source)

More Information

In 1807, Thomas Jefferson sent General George Rogers Clark to Big Bone Lick, Kentucky, to collect fossils.  The site of an ancient salt lick, Big Bone Lick had once attracted Pleistocene-era mammoths, giant ground sloths and giant bison, which had died near the salt lick when they became trapped in the surrounding bogs, leaving a rich heritage of fossils.

In his letter shown below, Jefferson requests that General Rogers have the bones that Rogers had collected packed and shipped to a New Orleans collector, who would then forward them to Washington D.C.  (Source: Wikipedia)

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WFPL News 89.3 FM radio interviews Stanley Hedeen, author of the book Big Bone Lick: The Cradle of American Paleontology.  Hedeen discusses what was once considered North America’s greatest paleontological treasure, capturing the attention of George Washington, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

Stanley Hedeen is professor emeritus of biology and former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Xavier University.  He has written several books on the natural and environmental history of the greater Cincinnati region.

Listen to the Interview

Following are three clips from a Big Bone Lick State Park documentary that was produced, directed and filmed by Ron E. Lawson for Kentucky Educational Television.  KET started an Independent Producer’s Fund in 1991 to promote independent film production in Kentucky.  Lawson received one of the first grants from this fund.  He used the nominal grant to produce this half-hour program that was completed in August 1992.

Part 1:

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Cincinnati Museum Center Heritage Programs have been presenting historical, cultural and architectural tours for over 20 years.  Each month, Heritage Programs offer scheduled tours of unique sites of local or regional interest.  All tours include lunch unless specified.

On Friday, June 4, from 9 am to 3:30 pm, Cincinnati Museum Center Heritage Programs will tour Big Bone Lick State Park.  Cost is $70 for members, $75 for non-members.  The registration deadline is May 28.  Here is a description of the tour:

President Thomas Jefferson asked explorers Lewis and Clark to bring back animal remains from Big Bone Lick, now considered the “Birthplace of American Vertebrate Paleontology.”  Dr. Glenn Storrs, Withrow Farney curator of vertebrate paleontology, leads us through the trails of the Kentucky State Park while interpreting the Ice Age events that have preserved the fossilized remains of mastodons, wooly mammoths and ground sloths.  This tour involves long periods of standing and hiking up hills and through woods on uneven and wet trails, so please dress accordingly.

To register for a tour, call (513) 287-7031.  Please note that payment must be received at the time of booking.  For more information about the Heritage Program Tours, send an e-mail to: heritageprograms@cincymuseum.org.

The book, “The Legacy of the Mastodon: The Golden Age of Fossils in America” by Dr. Keith Stewart Thompson, gets its start in Big Bone Lick.  Quoting the official book description:

“The uncovering in the mid-1700s of fossilized mastodon bones and teeth at Big Bone Lick, Kentucky, signaled the beginning of a great American adventure.  The West was opening up and unexplored lands beckoned.  Unimagined paleontological treasures awaited discovery: strange horned mammals, birds with teeth, flying reptiles, gigantic fish, diminutive ancestors of horses and camels, and more than a hundred different kinds of dinosaurs.

“This exciting book tells the story of the grandest period of fossil discovery in American history, the years from 1750 to 1890.  The volume begins with Thomas Jefferson, whose keen interest in the American mastodon led him to champion the study of fossil vertebrates.  The book continues with vivid descriptions of the actual work of prospecting for fossils–a pick in one hand, a rifle in the other–and enthralling portraits of Joseph Leidy, Ferdinand Hayden, Edward Cope, and Othniel Marsh among other major figures in the development of the science of paleontology.

“Shedding new light on these scientists’ feuds and rivalries, on the connections between fossil studies in Europe and America, and on paleontology’s contributions to America’s developing national identity, THE LEGACY OF THE MASTODON is itself a fabulous discovery for every reader to treasure.”

Adapted from the National Park Service:

Meriwether Lewis traveled to Big Bone Lick in October 1803 on his way west to join William Clark and the men assembling in Louisville for the Corps of Discovery.  Lewis sent a box of Big Bone specimens back to President Jefferson.

Jefferson devoted much time to the study of Big Bone Lick and believed that some of the large animals might still be living in the western regions of the country.

In 1807, after the Corps of Discovery disbanded, Jefferson sent Clark to Big Bone Lick for the first organized vertebra paleontology expedition in the United States.  Clark employed laborers and collected enough bones in three weeks’ time to ship three huge boxes to the President.

Jefferson had a room in the White House to display the Big Bone collection.  The collection was divided and shipped to the National Institute of France in Paris, to Philadelphia, and to Jefferson’s personal collection, which was unfortunately ground into fertilizer by a careless servant.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition

This map from the Library of Congress shows two flourishing Shawnee villages in 1665.  The beast you see on the left side of this map could indicate the relative location of Big Bone Lick, as many mastodon bones have been found there.  But early Lexington history indicates big bones were found there as well.

From The Rural Democrat

From the book, Big Bone Lick: The Cradle of American Paleontology, by Stanley Hedeen:

In 1828, while zoologist William Cooper was collecting specimens at Big Bone Lick, Cincinnati physician Daniel Drake proudly wrote of the location’s widespread reputation: “This spot has acquired a notoriety that is not even limited to the United States.  Its name explains the nature of this distinction.  No place in America, perhaps none in the world, has afforded an equal number of large fossil bones.”

Big Bone Lick is one of the most famous paleontological sites in North America.  Vast numbers of bones were collected throughout the mid 1700’s and transported to museums throughout the world.

In 1807, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned Captain William Clark to excavate bones from Big Bone Lick for scientific study.  This made Big Bone Lick the first official paleontological collecting site in North America.  Collected bones made their way to museums throughout the world and into Jefferson’s Monticello home in Virginia, where the bones can still be viewed today.  The discovery of "elephant" bones at Big Bone Lick was one of the reasons that Thomas Jefferson sent explorers westward to Kentucky and beyond in hopes of discovering new species.

Because the bones from Big Bone Lick were different than bones of modern elephants, Benjamin Franklin and other scientists began to question the changes that must have occurred in the Earth’s past to render these animals extinct.  Eventually they learned these big bones belonged to mammoths and mastodons, two types of extinct elephants.

Read more at Kentucky Geological Survey