Saltville, Virginia Was Once Home To Woolly Mammoth And Giant Sloth [Finding Bigfoot]

Another great reason to watch the Finding Bigfoot show tonight is to hopefully catch a small glimpse of the rich history that Saltville, Virginia has to offer.

According to American geologist, Charles Bartlett, “Saltville can probably claim to be the most fascinating two square miles in Virginia, or possibly the eastern United States, owing to its geology, paleontology, history and past industrial production.”

In a recent Indian Country Today article by Jordan Wright, he writes about how, in the Pleistocene Age, Saltville was a convergent point for prehistoric creatures like the great woolly mammoth, elephant-size ground sloths and hulking mastodons, who came in search of water and salt deposits for their survival.

Here's what he wrote about the area:

But the small town in a quiet valley has known a great deal more excitement than the random sighting of a mythical creature. In a place where the bizarre presence of mallards and Canada geese paddling lazily in salt ponds in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains is commonplace, the unexpected is, well, ordinary.

Saltville’s inhabitants have always lived at the crossroads of history because of salt. The quest for the coveted mineral lured prehistoric animals and hunters. Tribes from the region used it for trade and later industrialists made fortunes selling it to the nation. Salt’s powerful influence held sway during the Civil War when Union forces fought a 36-hour battle to capture Saltville and destroy its crucial saltworks. It is not a simple story to tell. It’s a story of war and survival, but also of power and prosperity.

Despite what is taught to most American schoolchildren, our early history did not begin with the emergence of the dinosaur and miraculously pop back up with the British landing at Plymouth Rock. Aboriginal people migrated down from Alaska and up from Florida, the Caribbean and Mexico to arrive in this wilderness. In the area of Saltville Paleo-Indians dwelt along the Clinch and Holston rivers in Southwestern Virginia and on across the mountains and valleys into the adjoining territories of what is now known as North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee.

In the Pleistocene Age Saltville was a convergent point for prehistoric creatures like the great woolly mammoth, elephant-size ground sloths and hulking mastodons, who came in search of water and salt deposits for their survival. Over millennia these massive mammals carved permanent trails in the earth. Of six major Indian trails in Virginia three are found leading to Saltville, tracing the well established paths of the animals that came before them.

Mold of a giant sloth's footprint

You can read the full article here.