At the end of a well-lit concrete path in North Waco lies a pile of striking old bones, circa 68,000 years old, that hundreds of people are coming daily to see, and for good reason. The Waco Mammoth site is indeed a mammoth site. Its future impact promises to be as well.

Housed in a light-filtering building opened in December, the remains of 19 Columbian mammoths are preserved, fittingly, for the ages. It’s the largest known collection of such mammoths to have died in a single event ever found in North America. And it’s the only known nursery herd displaying numerous female mammoths and offspring found on our sprawling continent.

Visitors on a metal walkway three feet above the active dig site can clearly make out the silhouette of a bull mammoth who apparently tried to lift a young mammoth up and out of harm’s way —what scientists now believe was an epic flood that wiped out the herd in a ravine near the Bosque River.

Most museum exhibits display skeletal bones, but this site features unaltered remains in their original resting spot, still mired in Central Texas dirt. One can almost see the fleeing herd as water rushed in.

No minor exhibit

The mammoth bones aren’t dangling from the ceiling on metal rods in a fake setting. This is real. Nor are they fossilized, nor do they appear parched. They look smooth to the touch and were preserved in a most incredible way: naturally, by mud, which scientists believe covered the area quickly and thoroughly. It’s truly a sight to behold, a must-do event any Tuesday through Saturday. Spring break visitors definitely seemed to agree as more than 4,000 came through this month. March 18 they set a record with 695 visitors.

If this is a harbinger of how summer activity will be, then it’s certain to be a busy destination point.

“We are really being surprised by our success,” said Gloria Young, chairwoman of the Waco Mammoth Site Advisory Board. Much credit is due both Young and her husband, F.M., who worked for years to raise private funds to establish the visitors center. Currently they’re leading the campaign to have five of the site’s 100 acres designated as part of the National Park System.

The measure, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, passed the House of Representatives last year. A bill by U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison is waiting to be taken up in that august body.

Expansion plans

The Trib hopes this passes, and soon. That could bring more federal attention and further area expansion. The site is operated by Baylor University and the City of Waco, but it is, yes, a mammoth task.

Expansion plans include more trails, a boat landing and a boat tour down the picturesque Bosque. They even want to construct a building where visitors can watch scientists studying the remains in a fishbowl-like laboratory.

That could put Waco on par with facilities like the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. But it will cost several million dollars, Young tells us.

On a tour of the site, Young marveled aloud at how the bones have managed to stay undisturbed since their 1978 discovery. For nearly 30 years the site was covered by no more than a circus tent on what was a dairy farm. “Thankfully the site had been buffered by poison ivy, chiggers and vicious mosquitoes,” she joked.

The Youngs were fortunate to visit the area in the 1980s. They kept the location secret as they rallied support. Had the building not been ready before this year’s rains, the old bones might have been washed down river; this treasure detailing mighty 10-ton beasts could’ve been lost.

No doubt God’s veil protected this site from the elements in earlier times. But it’s up to us to watch over it from here.