Fort Washington at Cincinnati Part 5 Special Edition - by Robert Ralston Jones

***Big Bones Special Edition***

This episode we visit the National Park Service park - Big Bone Lick State Historic Site, part of the Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail in Union, Kentucky.

Welcome back to - Fort Washington at Cincinnati Ohio Part 5 - by Robert Ralston Jones.

This episode we find General Harmar working on a special mission for the folks back in Philadelphia. The mission is to recover "Big Bones" of ancient animals found at Big Bone Lick in Kentucky and carefully transport them back to people like Caspar Wistar for further analysis and for sketching images of the bones, tusks, and teeth of mammoths, mastodons, and other Pleistocene fauna. 

Caspar Wistar; Linda Hall Library

Salt licks, or natural mineral deposits where animals gathered to consume essential salts, played a crucial role in both the survival of early American pioneers and the prehistoric megafauna of the Pleistocene era.

For pioneers settling in the Ohio River Valley and surrounding regions, salt was an essential commodity for preserving food, curing meat, and maintaining livestock health. Natural salt licks became critical resources, often determining where settlements, trails, and roads were established. Some of the most well-known salt licks, like Big Bone Lick in present-day Union, Kentucky, were frequented by pioneers who boiled the mineral-rich water to extract salt for personal use and trade. These locations often became gathering points for hunters and travelers, as well as contested areas in conflicts between settlers and Native Americans.

Long before human settlement, the same salt licks attracted massive prehistoric creatures during the Ice Age. Mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, and other megafauna regularly visited these sites to consume essential minerals. However, due to the marshy conditions surrounding many salt licks, these heavy creatures sometimes became trapped in the mud, leading to their eventual death. Over thousands of years, their bones accumulated and were naturally preserved in the mineral-rich deposits.

A Map of Kentucky Drawn from Actual Observations. By John Filson.

When pioneers arrived in places like Big Bone Lick, they were stunned to find enormous fossilized bones protruding from the earth. Early settlers, unsure of their origins, often speculated that these remains belonged to giant biblical creatures or prehistoric monsters. In reality, they were the remains of mastodons, mammoths, and other Ice Age giants that had perished at the site thousands of years earlier. The discovery of these bones in Union, Kentucky, helped spark early scientific interest in North America’s prehistoric past.

In fact, Big Bone Lick became a significant site for early paleontology, with notable figures such as Thomas Jefferson and William Clark (of the Lewis and Clark Expedition) expressing great interest in the fossils found there. The site remains one of the most important Pleistocene fossil deposits in the country.

Lewis and Clark Trail NPS

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