Long before settlers came to Waco, mammoths occupied the region of Central Texas near the Brazos River.
We know because of two men enjoying a day in the area in 1978.
"Two young men were out walking through the woods and they saw a bone sticking out of an area where there had been some heavy rain," Sarah Levine, with the Mayborn Museum, said.
The men brought the bone to the formerly named Strecker Museum at Baylor University, where it was determined to be that of a Columbian mammoth.
By 1990, 15 mammoths had been identified at the site.
"At this point there have been 25 discovered," Levine said. "Not all of those have been excavated."
Public access to site is prohibited, and there are many who don't even know it exists. News 8 was not allowed on the site.
Thus, for the public, visiting the mammoth exhibit at the Mayborn Museum is the only way to experience the findings.
With the site scheduled to open to the public next Fall, Waco's ready to let the world see the mammoths that strutted the area 68,000 years ago.
"The truth is, it's been kept kind of secret because it has not been available to the public, and part of the security of the site was not knowing where it was," Levine said.
Supporters of the project said they hope the site will be taken under the wing of the National Park Service.
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History in the rocks
News 8's Bonnie Gonzalez tells
us more about this historical find.
 
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"We have met the criteria for the National Park to name us as part of their system and we're in the latter stages of being named," Gayle Lacy, with the Waco Mammoth Foundation, said.
Unlike other findings of the prehistoric remains through out the globe so far, the Waco discovery is the world's largest known concentration of mammoths perishing in the same event.
It's a moment frozen in history, and soon the public will be able to experience the remnants of a creature that walked long before man.
