Located in Hot Springs, South Dakota, the Mammoth Site is the site of 27000 year old sinkhole and hot springs. Mammoths (mostly Columbian, but a couple of Woolly Mammoths too) occasionally wandered into the sinkhole and became stuck in the mud and unable to escape. As a consequence many mammoth skeletons were preserved in the accumulating sediment layers in the sinkhole. A contractor discovered a mammoth bone during an excavation for a subdivision in 1974 and fortunately he and the city of Hot Springs had the foresight to recognize the potential for both science and tourism. Both have been realized in a greater way than either could have imagined.