Big Bone Lick

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

See the full-size map

Big Bone Lick State Park is a 512-acre park located in an unincorporated area of Boone County, Kentucky.  The park is located on Beaver Road between the communities of Beaverlick and Rabbit Hash.  The name of the park comes from the mammoth and other large fossils found there.  The park bills itself as "the birthplace of American paleontology" a term which dates from William Clark’s expedition in 1807.

Big Bone Lick State Park was established in 1960.  In 1972, the park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  In 2002, the National Park Service designated Big Bone Lick State Park as an official Lewis and Clark Heritage Trail Site.

Adapted from Wikipedia