Local Residents Help Baylor Purchase Land To Protect Mammoth Site

February 7, 2001

A group of interested local residents have joined together to help Baylor University purchase 105 acres that surround the Waco Mammoth site. "Buddy" and Virginia Bostick donated $100,000 and Don and Pam Moes gave another $25,000 to add to Liz McGlasson's donation of a $50,000 reduction in price to buy 50 acres bordering the site on the west and south sides connecting with Steinbeck Bend Road. Previously, the Bosticks and Moes had donated $100,000 and $75,000, respectively, to purchase 55 acres from the mammoth site down to the Bosque River frontage.
"We are deeply appreciative of these recent contributions," said Calvin Smith, director of the Strecker Museum Complex and chair of museum studies. "By securing the land around the site it opens the door to pursue new funding that would otherwise not be available to either Baylor or the City of Waco."
Smith said that purchasing the vast acreage surrounding the site will preserve the ambience of the area as well as enable the museum to one day open the site to tourists.
"We needed the land that connected with the main highway, which will enable us to open the site to the general public," he said. "We also learned there was a firm offer on the 'Belgium property,' which is our total eastern boundary, and we needed the water connection to the Bosque River to be competitive for Texas Parks and Wildlife grants. The Bosticks, Moes and Mrs. McGlasson graciously and generously offered to help us with securing the land."
Smith believes that when the site is opened to the public, it will become one of the state's leading tourist attractions. "Our attendance projection of more than 100,000 annually is based on the continual requests to visit the site that we receive from school districts within a 100-mile radius of Waco and another 100,000-plus visitors that visit a similar site in Hot Springs, S.D., which is much more remote," he said.
The Waco Mammoth site was discovered in 1978 by Paul Barron and Eddie Bufkin, who brought it to the attention of the Strecker Museum. To date 23 mammoths and one camel have been discovered in the upper section of the site, making it the largest concentration in the world of extinct proboscideans dying from the same event.
For more information, contact Smith at 710-1123.