Bone Wars
Early frontier geologists were drawn to the monumental limestone bluffs in this location and the chalk exposures beyond. The original interest was in the mapping and study of Cretaceous fossils, this general area of the state becoming a part of the broader focus of the Bone Wars. F. V. Hayden studied the site in 1871. At the time, Big Creek was undercutting the face the bluff, exposing of "Benton Shale" normally covered by grass on other slopes.