Williamson County, to the north of Lawrence, has been the location of an unusually high number of mastodon finds for many years. Since 1977 alone, paleontologists have discovered portions of the skeletons of four of the mighty beasts at the Coats-Hines Site, near the Cool Springs Galleria. The finds are especially important because they are some of the only mastodon skeletons east of the Mississippi River which show direct evidence of hunting by Paleoindians.

According to this blurb from the April 1, 1846 edition of the Lawrenceburg ‘Academist,’ however, the mastodon finds in Williamson County go back much farther than 1977. In the autumn of 1845, one such mastodon skeleton from Williamson County was displayed in Lawrenceburg.

According to the article, the collection of giant bones was billed as a ‘Monster Skeleton’ during its stay in Lawrenceburg, no doubt to excite the minds of the curious. Scientists properly identified it as the remains of a mastodon in early 1846, after it had left Lawrenceburg.