Supporters are hoping to open a $3.2 million visitor center and pavilion to protect the site this spring.

“We are excited about the project as a significant potential economic development component for Waco,” said Tom Stanton, executive director of the Rapoport Foundation.

The site is believed to contain the largest concentrated of remains of the prehistoric animals killed in a single event.

Since the first bones were discovered at the site nearly 30 years ago, researchers have meticulously excavated the remains of 25 Columbia mammoths that evidently perished together, possibly in a flash flood, nearly 70,000 years ago.