Big Bone is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in southern Boone County,

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

, United States. It is bounded on the west by the

Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...

, and Rabbit Hash, on the south by Big Bone Creek, which empties into the river at Big Bone Landing. The northern extent is along Hathaway Road, and the eastern portion extends not further than U.S. 42, and is approached from that direction by Beaver Road ( Route 338) coming from either Richwood or

Walton Walton may refer to: People * Walton (given name) * Walton (surname) * Susana, Lady Walton (1926–2010), Argentine writer Places Canada * Walton, Nova Scotia, a community ** Walton River (Nova Scotia) *Walton, Ontario, a hamlet United Kingd ...

. Big Bone took its name from a nearby prehistoric

mineral lick A mineral lick (also known as a salt lick) is a place where animals can go to lick essential mineral nutrients from a deposit of salts and other minerals. Mineral licks can be naturally occurring or artificial (such as blocks of salt that fa ...

of the same name. Geographical features of interest include

Big Bone Lick State Park Big Bone Lick State Park is located at Big Bone in Boone County, Kentucky. The name of the park comes from the Pleistocene megafauna fossils found there. Mammoths are believed to have been drawn to this location by a salt lick deposited around ...

and the now disappeared Big Bone Island.

History

Big Bone Lick, now the site of

, is a well-known landmark in the immediate area of Big Bone. The

salt lick A mineral lick (also known as a salt lick) is a place where animals can go to lick essential mineral nutrients from a deposit of salts and other minerals. Mineral licks can be naturally occurring or artificial (such as blocks of salt that far ...

, or lick, as it is more generally known locally, was long known to the original inhabitants of the area. The

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

deposits were a well-known feature in the geographical region. The area was named after the extraordinarily large bones, including those of

mammoths A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus.'' They lived from the late Miocene epoch (from around 6.2 million years ago) into the Holocene until about 4,000 years ago, with mammoth species at various times inhabi ...

and

mastodons A mastodon, from Ancient Greek μαστός (''mastós''), meaning "breast", and ὀδούς (''odoús'') "tooth", is a member of the genus ''Mammut'' (German for 'mammoth'), which was endemic to North America and lived from the late Miocene to ...

, found in the

swamps A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

around the

frequented by animals, who need

salt In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as r ...

in their diets. The mineral springs are created by water flowing through the underlying formations of

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

and

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...

, where the trapped salts are dissolved and carried, in solution, to the surface, creating

brine Brine (or briny water) is a high-concentration solution of salt (typically sodium chloride or calcium chloride) in water. In diverse contexts, ''brine'' may refer to the salt solutions ranging from about 3.5% (a typical concentration of seawat ...

. In 1809, a salt furnace featuring two large furnaces with mounted kettles was built to extract salt from the brackish water. It was soon discovered that, due to the relatively low salinity of the springs, 500 to 600 gallons of water were required to produce a single

bushel A bushel (abbreviation: bsh. or bu.) is an Imperial unit, imperial and United States customary units, US customary unit of volume, based upon an earlier measure of dry capacity. The old bushel was used mostly for agriculture, agricultural pr ...

of salt. By 1812 the venture had failed."National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Big Bone Lick State Park," United States Department of the Interior National Park Service, February 2000
/ref> The Clay House, a resort hotel, opened nearby in 1815, offering visitors an opportunity to bathe in the supposedly medicinal salt mineral springs. It quickly became popular among naturalists, who came to find bones for museums or private collections. The Clay House closed in 1830, but the salt springs remained a popular

spa A spa is a location where mineral-rich spring water (sometimes seawater) is used to give medicinal baths. Spa health treatments are known as balneotherapy. The belief in the curative powers of mineral waters and hot springs goes back to pre ...

until 1847. A second hotel was built in 1870. A post office called Bigbone was established in 1890, and remained in operation until 1941.

Geography

Big Bone Creek enters the

at mile 516.8 below

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

. The mouth is at the division of Boone and Gallatin Counties, Kentucky, near the site of Big Bone Island. It is navigable for several miles, and flows through

Big Bone Island

Big Bone Island was a small, natural island composed of sand and gravel in the Ohio River near the mouth of Big Bone Creek at Big Bone. It is just south of the Boone County line in

Gallatin County, Kentucky Gallatin County, is a county located in the northern part of the U.S. state of Kentucky. Its county seat is Warsaw. The county was founded in 1798 and named for Albert Gallatin, the Secretary of the Treasury under President Thomas Jefferson. G ...

. Of note is that the county line "runs down the center of the creek". It plays a part in local lore and history of the area and was a popular fishing and camping location. The island has disappeared due mostly to the rise of the river caused by the construction of the

Markland Dam The Markland Locks and Dam is a concrete dam bridge and locks that span the Ohio River. It is 1395 feet (425.2 m) long, and connects Gallatin County, Kentucky, and Switzerland County, Indiana. The locks and dam were reviewed by the Board of E ...

, but also due to slabs of floating river ice which destroyed much of the vegetation and carried away most of the soil during the flooding of 1978.

1978 floods

In January 1978, the Ohio River rapidly rose from 29.6 feet on January 25 to 53.9 feet on January 30, during what has been described as "one of the most severe winter months in southwestern Ohio history." This caused an enormous ice jam, which eventually broke, sending "a wall of ice and water" downstream. It has been stated that the decisions and actions of the

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the military engineering branch of the United States Army. A direct reporting unit (DRU), it has three primary mission areas: Engineer Regiment, military construction, and civil wor ...

on January 27, 1978, at the Markland Dam, caused the ice jam to break. This was characterized as being perhaps the worst disaster in modernity on the Ohio River, and caused significant damage, with entire docks, barges and boats crammed against or forced through the Markland dam. A towboat and seven barges sank at the dam, three barges were swept over the dam, six barges were unaccounted for, and 11 barges lodged against the dam producing a major pollution and explosion potential.C. D. Morrison, "Between a Dam and a Hard Spot," International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings, 1 March, 1979 (1): 407–410.
/ref> The ice literally "shaved off" Big Bone Island at the time.

References

External links