History
The area is rich in history, and was the site of a "Watering Place", a hotel that catered to the well-to-do in the early part of the nineteenth century. There have been at least three hotels associated with the springs. The area has traditionally been primarily agricultural. Early transportation was by river. There were a few steamboats built in the 1830s (until the white oak timber gave out). The largest town, now extinct, was Hamilton, named after an early magistrate, Joel Hamilton; family descendants still live in the area. Hamilton, on the river, was originally known as Landing, and was located at the mouth of Little Gunpowder Creek, now generally known as Landing Creek. The nearby village of Normansville was never incorporated, and was just a mile or so from Hamilton. There were several businesses there in the 1880s and following.
There were several schools in the area, the earliest before 1843. The earliest church was the Mud Lick Baptist Church, established about 1805, but it went out of existence after 1845. The Big Bone Baptist Church was established in 1843. The house of worship was built on land donated by Gen. John Wallace and Thomas Huey. Until then most of the inhabitants of the area attended Middle Creek Baptist Church (now called Belleview in Belleview Bottoms, Kentucky). The only other church in the immediate area, the Big Bone Methodist Church, was established in 1888. The Methodist building, the upstairs of which was owned by the Masonic lodge, is still standing, and the land is now owned by the Park; the building is presently undergoing repairs. There are a number of cemeteries in the area, the largest being at the Baptist Church. The oldest graves in this cemetery are from the 1840s.
There have been excavations of several of the prehistoric sites in the area, as well as at historic sites. A number of the farms in the area were tended by slaves before the American Civil War, though the density was probably not as high as in some other areas of the county because of the nature of the terrain. Probably the most famous visitor at that time was Gen. John Hunt Morgan, who passed by the Lick on a cold snowy day, with Capt. Hines. They were escaping from prison after being captured in Union territory. The hamlet of Big Bone gained some status in the early 1900s, and a "traction road" (railway) was proposed several times, but never materialized. The park itself became a reality due primarily to the efforts of John Uri Lloyd (1849–1936), a notable researcher and writer from the county who founded and served as the first president of the "Big Bone Lick Historical Association."
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