Patricia Fox
Special to the NKyTribune
Friends of Big Bone and their partners- park personnel at Big Bone Lick State Historic Site, and the Cincinnati Museum Center- will be celebrating the completion of the four year Revitalization Project of the Visitors Center at Big Bone Lick State Historical Site on September 7 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Donnie Holland, Kentucky Parks Commissioner, and Dr. Glenn Storrs, head of vertebrate paleontology at CMC, will give the opening remarks regarding the project and the park’s historic and prehistoric significance followed by light refreshments and a chance for the public to see the recently finished project.
Done in three phases, the project began in 2014 and saw Phase I completed in May of 2015 with the installation of nine thematic cases that covered Big Bone’s history and pre-history from the Ordovician Era to the 21st century.
In June of 2016, Phase II, the completion of the Bison Antiquus diorama was revealed, and in August 2017, the skeletal reconstruction of a Harlan Ground Sloth was installed complete with a recent find at the park, a tibia of a Harlan Ground Sloth.
The Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky region is fortunate to have an historical gem in the form of Boone County’s Big Bone Lick State Historic Site, which may be described as “a diamond in the rough.”
Big Bone Lick has been designated the birthplace of American vertebrate paleontology. Historians and scientists have long recognized the importance of the Big Bone Valley, but a lack of resources in the past have prevented the effective display of the large fossil bones that gave the park its name.
Thus the stories surrounding this designation were inadequately known to the visiting public. The partnership between Friends of Big Bone, Kentucky State Parks Personnel, and the Cincinnati Museum Center has enabled the park’s Visitor Center to promote the significance of the Big Bone Valley and provide visitors a better understanding of the unique value of Big Bone Lick State Historic Site.
