For background on the site - which I'd like to visit now - here you go:
- Obama signs Waco Mammoth National Monument declaration.
- Wikipedia: Waco Mammoth National Monument.
- President Obama to officially declare Waco Mammoth Site as national monument.
The last link takes you to a timeline that point out how the city of Waco was able to slowly get monument status for the park, which allows for additional funds for the park. The development of it of course adds to the reasons someone might want to visit Waco - and spend the night and eat at its restaurants and otherwise pump money in the local economy.
Some highlights from the timeline:
1978 - 1982 : Discovery.
I'm unclear who owned the land that the mammoths were found on. It was on the bed of the Bosque River.
2001 - 2004: Congress gets involved.
U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards authored a bill in May 2001, signed by President George W. Bush in 2002, that directed the National Park Service to conduct a "special resource study" to determine the feasibility of including the Waco Mammoth Site in the National Park System. Language inserted in a December 2004 appropriations bill by Edwards specifically directed the Department of the Interior to move ahead with the study. "Without the directive language in this bill, the Waco mammoth study might not have begun for three to five years, because of the backlog of park studies," Edwards said then. He also secured a $200,000 earmark the next year to assist in the ongoing preservation efforts.
2006: 'Most important step!
In March 2006, the city and Baylor both pledged $100,000 toward the $1 million fundraising goal for the site following an $200,000 federal earmark for the project from Chet Edwards. "This is probably the most important step we've taken," said Ellie Caston, director of Baylor's Mayborn Museum Complex. She estimated that it might take up to a decade to get a National Park Service designation for the site. In September 2006, Texas' U.S. Senators, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, urged the Department of the Interior to make the site part of the park service.
2009 - 2010: Legislative logjam
In 2009, bills were introduced in the House and Senate by U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards and U.S. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn to make the Waco site a national monument in the National Park System. The senators visited Waco to promote the project in April and Waco City Manager Larry Grothtestified in Washington to support the bill. But in 2010, Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn held up the bill as the nation engaged in a national debate about government spending and the national debt. Although not a funding bill itself, Coburn objected to opening the door to any future spending that wasn't offset by cuts. The park service had estimated the federal cost of running the site at $345,000 a year. Some suggested forgoing any future federal funding in exchange for the designation. An eleventh-hour compromise bill by Cornyn led to Coburn dropping his hold, but the measure never came up for a vote before the session adjourned.
2011 — 2013: Legislative logjam II
Newly elected U.S. Rep. Bill Flores and U.S. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn filed a new bill to make the mammoth site a national monument without any federal funding. “The thing that impressed me most is the way the city of Waco, Baylor University and local leaders got together to make this site what it is today,” said Flores in 2011. But National Park Service staff objected to the bill, arguing that separate provisions in the bill “contradict each other” by calling for the site to be in the national park system while also prohibiting federal funds to carry out its administration. After passing the House, a divided Senate never took up the bill, with the Interior Department making it clear that a federal funding ban would be a deal-killer. A grass-roots petition to the White House was scuttled by the 2013 federal government shutdown after garnering about 700 signatures.
2014 — 2015: Executive decision?
Attempting to bypass Congress, in 2014 the Waco City Council asked that the mammoth site be added to the National Park System by presidential order. With the nonprofit advocate National Park Conservation Association, the city lobbied the Interior Department to recommend the site be made a national monument under the Antiquities Act, designed to preserve cultural and scientific treasures. Waco leaders visited Washington and spoke directly with Interior and the park service, who were impressed with the proposed management model involving the city, Baylor and NPS. In April 2015, parks director Jon Jarvis called the mammoth site "a fantastic park" after coming away impressed from a Waco visit that featured a standing-room only crowd. Praising work done by the city, Baylor and the nonprofit Waco Mammoth Foundation, he said “The infrastructure looks like the National Park Service designed it ... When you drive in, the only thing missing is the arrowhead.”
April 21, 2015: Waco cedes mammoth site to park service
Following the visit by national parks chief Jon Jarvis, the Waco City Councilunanimously agreed to relinquish the core of the Waco Mammoth Site to the federal government on April 21, 2015, contingent on President Barack Obama making it a national monument. The resolution granted the five-acre dig site and all excavated bones to the National Park Service and allows an adjacent 108 acres to be part of the national park system while remaining under city ownership.
July 10, 2015: Finally! Waco Mammoth National Monument
With a stroke of President Barack Obama’s pen on Friday, July 11, 2015, the Waco Mammoth Site became the Waco Mammoth National Monument. “It was pretty special. He said it was so rewarding to see a group take this long to be able to come together for an effort like this," said mayor Malcom Duncan Jr. Now that the order has been signed, the city of Waco will work with the National Park Service, Baylor and the Waco Mammoth Foundation to form a partnership controlling the monument. The federal government will pay for a park ranger, who will begin in October, and will provide signs and research money. The city will continue to pay to maintain the park and retain the current staff. And most importantly: Duncan says he'll be contacting the proper officials to get signs placed on Interstate 35.
