1050 Charles J Becker Drive
Imperial, MO
Admission is $4 for ages 13 and up. All younger are free. Free parking.
Website: https://mostateparks.com/park/mastodon-state-historic-site
The Mastodon State Historic Site is part of the Missouri State Park system. The site includes a museum, a museum annex, 3 hiking trails, a bird sanctuary, picnic areas, and a playground.
The main museum is housed in the Visitor Center. This is the only museum in Missouri dedicated to the Ice Age.
Our visit to the museum began with a wonderful film about the mastodons, the time period in which they lived, and the history of the bone bed that is in the park. It was a very informative film that definitely should be watched prior to walking through the museum.
The museum is located at what is known as the Kimmswick Bone Bed, the site of several successful excavations of Ice Age life. Several displays are dedicated to the excavation history of the area. The first of the excavations was in 1839.
There were further digs at different periods in the 1900's. After the park was purchased in the 1970's by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources an important excavation took place in 1979. It was at the 1979 dig that a correlation was made between the mastodons and the earliest culture known in the USA, the Clovis. This display shows how the 1979 archaeologists worked in the bone bed.
The display below helps to explain the layers of animals and artifacts as found in the layers of earth.
Upon entering the museum you are greeted by this beautiful large painting of animal life in North America 16,000 years ago.
What do we know about the largest animal, the mastodon?
In the center of the museum is this life-size skeleton of a mastodon. This skeleton represents an adult male, 10 feet high and 20 feet long, weighing between 5 and 6 tons. It is made out of fiberglass and molded from original mastodon bones.
This bone was discovered by volunteers in 1977-78 and is the right side of a hip bone of an adult mastodon.
These are obviously jaw bones. The growth of the teeth tell us that the lower one is from a baby, perhaps 3 years old. The larger one, found at the site in 1981, is from a young adult.
This life scene shows us how the Clovis may have lived in this area about 11,000 years ago. The Clovis were the earliest of the Paleo-Indians and the 1979 dig proved that they were in the area hunting mastodons as well as probably hunting other animals.
The Clovis were nomadic, moving in small groups to follow game. Archaeologists have learned how to identify their tools.
The museum displays a number of artifacts of early people inhabiting the area.
The museum does not neglect the many other animals present in this Ice Age period.
In the life scene, this life-size replica of a giant ground sloth shows him standing to a height of 6 feet, and using his giraffe-like tongue and long claws to gather food/leaves.
Other animals such as the long-nosed peccary are also on display in the life scene.
The main museum has just a few of items one can touch, the tooth below and some animal hides.
Next to the museum is the museum annex which unfortunately is only open on Saturdays because of the need to have a volunteer to supervise it. Consequently, we were unable to visit it. It includes several hands on experiences for children including a pretend dig, microscopes, and a lesson in determining the age of trees. There are also additional museum displays there, currently one on cave exploration.
The main museum includes a gift shop with t-shirts, stuffed mastodons, and related books and toys for children. It also has a number of adult books including several on native birds.
In 1995 a bird sanctuary was added to the park and offers an area to sit and observe up to 104 species of birds found in the park. A bird checklist is available on the site website.
The park has three hiking trails ranging from .4 mile to 2 miles and from easy to rugged. We chose the Wildflower Trail which begins right by the museum and ends at the bone bed.
This is the shortest trail but not the easiest - rated as moderate - because of the series of steps that continues for quite a distance.
The trail crosses an old limestone quarry.
At the bottom of the trail one comes to the bone bed which is covered with dirt and plants so to protect any other artifacts or bones still in the bed.
At this site one can follow directions on the signs for using a hand-held device of your own to listen to an audio tour.
These are some of the wildflowers we saw on the trail. We also saw lots of poison ivy!
After hiking and working up an appetite, we drove seven minutes to this delightful Kimmswick restaurant, The Dough Depot.
The restaurant is known for its pretzel bread sandwiches but it also offers a variety of choices on the menu.
This Gooey Caramel Sundae which sits on a gooeybutter cookie, was excellent.
While we were eating a fierce storm, complete with hail, blew in and eventually the restaurant lost its power.
Comments
The mastodon site is south of St. Louis about 10 minutes from the St. Louis County line in Jefferson County. The website is fairly helpful and includes a site map.
The museum was very interesting and a one-of-a-kind for the area. The film was excellent. The staff appeared to be very helpful. While we were there one employee was very happy to share her vast knowledge to visitors and was happy to answer several of my questions.
The displays were well-lit and the explanations easy to follow. I think we all gained much new knowledge about that period of time in Missouri.
The museum is relatively small and can be toured easily in less than an hour. We were disappointed to learn that the annex with the multiple children's activities is only open on Saturdays. The main museum would be of some interest to children,also; as we arrived a busload of second graders was leaving. We went to the site late morning on a Wednesday and there were about 5 other people in the museum while we were there.
The hiking trail was in good shape and included benches for resting - which we used!
The restaurant was OUTSTANDING! It came highly recommended and it was easy to tell why. Our salads and sandwiches were delicious. The desserts were yummy! The staff was very friendly and adjusted well to the power loss. And the prices were extremely reasonable. We all said we want to definitely return! The restaurant also had two gift shops.
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