Waco National Mammoth Monument is located on the outskirts of Waco, Texas. It is a site that is very new to the NPS system, and was just deemed to be a National Park by President Obama in 2015. The location, however, has been maintained by several Waco area organizations for years, many donations had been made, and the City made several improvements over the years. During that time, any improvements done were done to NPS standards, in the hope that someday, the park would be deemed as a National Park Service property.

The property is very pretty, with a lot of trees and has some small elevation changes. There is a visitor center with a small shop located at the parking area. You need to go in there and purchase a tour ticket. The ticket was $4. The tour takes you down a wooded path, and into a locked area where the mammoth remains were found.

The location was found by a couple of guys that were hunting or fishing or something in a small creek. They found a leg bone of a mammoth. The bone was about 4 feet long - so they knew it wasn't a cow! They took the bone to some experts, and the experts identified it as a mammoth bone. After this, the site was further investigated, and about a dozen sets of mammoth bones were found in the creek. These remains were removed and taken for further study.

Only about 100 feet away, another site was located, where several more sets of mammoth bones were found. These bones were left in situ, and a beautiful building was built around the site. The tour takes you into the building - something you cannot do without the tour. The tour guide gave a lot of great information on how the remains were found, how the deaths occurred, when the deaths occurred, and what is happening at the site now. It was a great tour, and very interesting.

Texas is very hot, so one nice thing about this site is that the building is air conditioned. More information on this site can be found at the NPS site at: https://www.nps.gov/waco/index.htm

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