UNION, Ky. (AP) — The gigantic bones found long ago in southwestern Boone County shook the minds and beliefs of top scientists east and west of the Atlantic Ocean in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Europeans and Americans had never seen the likes of the massive skeleton of extinct mastodons until French Capt. Charles Lemoyne de Longueil came upon them during a 1739 military expedition at a place called Big Bone Lick.