![\"Waco](\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/mammoth-july15.jpg\")
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It’s been almost\u00a040 years since\u00a0two Central Texas men stumbled across a large bone sticking out of a Waco creek bed and\u00a0brought it to Baylor for identification. Friday, that event reached its culmination as the Waco Mammoth National Monument was welcomed into the National Park System (NPS)<\/a>.<\/p>\n [CNN: “Texas mammoth herd site is a new national monument<\/a>“]<\/strong><\/p>\n So why does this matter to\u00a0Baylor?<\/em><\/p>\n For starters, it validates the work the university and the city of Waco have done at the site since its discovery in 1978 — excavating the site, studying and\u00a0preserving what’s been found there, and turning the once-private dig site into an educational\u00a0opportunity open to the public.\u00a0“The National Parks team was very impressed that one university has overseen and done all the work out there, and was very impressed with how well it was cared for,” Mayborn Museum director Ellie Caston told Baylor Magazine<\/em>\u00a0when the site opened to the public in 2009. “I think our alums can be proud that the work done here was good science.”<\/p>\n The NPS designation also honors\u00a0Baylor’s Mayborn Museum<\/a>, which, for more than 30 years, has housed specimens found at the site for study and safekeeping. With the site joining the NPS, the Mayborn has been\u00a0acknowledged as an official repository for the National Park Service — another nod toward the excellent work done by Baylor researchers over the years.<\/p>\n NPS\u00a0experts further showed their trust for what the university and the\u00a0City of Waco have done in allowing the current partnership to\u00a0continue managing the site<\/a>\u00a0alongside\u00a0the National Park Service.\u00a0The success of the long partnership between Baylor and the city (further bolstered by tremendous community support) has impressed\u00a0the NPS for years.<\/p>\n What makes the mammoth site special?<\/em><\/p>\n Over the last four decades, the site has revealed\u00a024 mammoth skeletons (plus remains of a saber-toothed cat, a camel and other smaller animals) dating back more than\u00a065,000 years. Researchers believe there may yet be more bones (both mammoth and others) still buried in the area. After 30 years of private work, the Waco Mammoth Site was opened to the public in 2009; the new facility now\u00a0protects\u00a0the exposed bones still in the ground from the elements and allows visitors to see the work from catwalks above the dig site.<\/p>\n [For more background, read “A Mammoth Undertaking”<\/a> from the Winter 2009-10 issue of Baylor Magazine<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n