Big Bone Lick State Historic Site is known for its mastodon bones and bison. Now, it is eyeing something else that’s big – official designation as a national historical park.
A Senate joint resolution asking Congress to grant the designation for the state historic site and park in Union passed the Senate on a 37-1 vote on March 15. It is now pending in the Kentucky House. Northern Kentucky Sen. Gex Williams (R-Verona) is the sponsor of the legislation.
“A lot of people are unaware that the largest dinosaur find east of the Mississippi is at Big Bone Lick. It’s an historic park. And we think it is time for it to become a national historical park,” Williams told a Senate committee early this month. “This will start it on its way.”
Senate Joint Resolution 194 is the legislation requesting the new designation. Sen. Shelley Funke Frommeyer (R-Alexandria) and Sen. John Schickel (R-Union) are cosponsoring the legislation.
Big Bone Lick – home to a mastodon skull, geological and fossil exhibits, bison, salt springs, hiking trails and a campground – is currently listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is linked to the Lewis and Clark expedition, which sent fossil specimens from the site to President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 at the president’s request.
After the expedition, in 1807, explorer William Clark led a paleontological dig at the site at Jefferson’s request.
In 2019, Congress added Big Bone Lick State Historic Site and Historic Locust Grove farm site in Louisville to the 4,900-mile Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail. Those two sites are the only Kentucky locations on the national historic trail that meanders through 16 states, from Pennsylvania to Oregon.
Scientifically, Big Bone Lick is linked to several geological and paleontological journals in the U.S. for its connection to the Ice Age, according to the National Park Service.
“From 1831 to 1848, various paleontologists and geologists visited Big Bone Lick, and the lick was included in indexes of all the principal geological, paleontological and scientific journals in the United States, England, Germany, and France,” the park service website says. “Big Bone Lick is recognized as the key to understanding the life of the Ice Age on the North American continent over 10,000 years ago.”
The site would become Kentucky’s third national historical park if Congress grants the designation. Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park in Hodgenville and Cumberland Gap National Historical Park in Middlesboro are the other two.
The Kentucky Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet would work with both Congress and the U.S. Department of the Interior to bring the designation home, should the resolution pass into law in the next several days.
“The Kentucky General Assembly urges the United States Congress,including the Kentucky Congressional delegation, to designate BIg Bone Lick State Historic Site as a national historical park and directs the Kentucky Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet to work in conjunction with (Congress) and the United States Department of the Interior to facilitate this endeavor,” the resolution states.
There are only a few legislative days (spread out over two weeks) left in the 2024 legislative session for lawmakers to pass SJR 194 and send it to the governor to be signed into law.
For now, the site will remain Big Bone Lick State Historic Site. The park grounds are open from dawn to dusk, seven days a week. Visitors can see active salt springs, 20,000 year old fossils, and its small herd of bison – or, as the Big Bone Lick website calls them, “modern-day Ice Age descendants.”
More information on Big Bone Lick State Historic Site, located at 3380 Beaver Road in Union, can be found here.
National Park Service locations in Kentucky, or that include parts of Kentucky, besides Lincoln’s birthplace and the Cumberland Gap, include Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, Camp Nelson National Monument in Jessamine County, Fort Donelson National Battlefield (spanning part of Calloway County in Kentucky, and parts of Tennessee), the Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail, Mammoth Cave National Park in Edmonson County, Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument in Pulaski County, and the Trail of Tears which passed through southwestern Kentucky.