Monday, October 13, 2014

Big Bone Lick

Big Bone Lick is a park with salt and sulfur springs. I never knew these existed, but these springs have attracted animals who wanted the salt from the springs since way back during the ice ages. The area was a marsh, so many animals would get caught and eventually their bones fossilized. Most of the marsh area and springs are now gone, but a couple of places still remain.  The springs have a white area from the salt along with the smell of sulfur. Apparently snakes don’t get stuck in the marsh; they just skim across the top. 

 

When explorers found the area in 1739, the area was covered in bones. Lewis and Clark came here during the early 1800’s to collect bones for President Jefferson. Apparently tons of bones from this area are displayed in American and European museums. Now there aren't any fossils at the park you can see on the surface. However, the park also has a small museum with displays of some of the fossils along with Native American remains like arrowheads. 

Just for a stupid story that might not all be true…a water tower was built first for a mall in Florence Kentucky. They advertised the mall with a sign that said Florence Mall.  But, since the mall wasn’t built yet it seemed like false advertising. So they changed it to say Florence Y’all so they didn’t need to pay for the whole thing to be repainted.  Everyone liked it so much that they never repainted it when the mall was finally built.


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