Chet Edwards For Congress

March 23, 2006
Baylor, Waco donate funds for historic site

Baylor Lariat
By LAURA FRASE | Baylor Lariat reporter

Baylor and the city of Waco each donated $100,000 to the Waco Mammoth Site, they announced Wednesday at a news conference at the Mayborn Museum Complex.

The gifts matched a $200,000 donation secured by Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, in 2005 from the Save America's Treasures grant program, said Sarah Levine, director of marketing at the Mayborn Museum Complex.

Save America's Treasures is a foundation dedicated to preserving monuments of America's history.

The money will be used to preserve and make the site more accessible to the public.

In April 1978, two Waco men discovered bones in the woods about five miles west of the Baylor campus. The bones were a little too large to be cow bones.

They turned their finding over to the Strecker Museum, and the "mystery" bones were identified as Columbian Mammoth bones.

Twenty-eight years later, Baylor, the city of Waco and the Save America's Treasures grant program are taking their first steps to update developments that will allow the public to visit the site.

"The Waco Mammoth Site is quite a treasure, not just for Waco, but really for the world," Levine said. "This money is just needed to protect the site and develop it to a public access place."

Because of ongoing research at the site since its discovery, the public has been discouraged from visiting. The site is located five miles west of campus.

"Several years ago, Baylor University and the city of Waco made the decision to focus all efforts on long-term preservation of the Waco Mammoth Site. With that in mind, we closed the site to any visitation except for our ongoing research and maintenance of the site," Dr. Ellie Caston, director of the Mayborn Museum Complex, said.

John Bongino, a Dothan, Ala., graduate student, is doing research at the Waco Mammoth Site and is excited about the developments.

"The site is in desperate need of an updated shelter because it's exposed to natural elements," Bongino said.

Bongino studies the soils and sediments at the site to figure out what kind of environment the mammoths lived in, as well as what could have killed them.

"There is a continuous study taking place out at the site. Every little bit that is discovered opens up a whole new set of questions," Levine said.

A lot of effort has gone into the development of the site, Levine added.

There is no time frame at this point for the site to be open to the public because more donations are needed, but a foundation has recently been set up to accept donations, she said.

"Once these preservation efforts are completed, our goal is to open the site to the public as soon as possible," Caston said.