CAA: GA News, "Mammoth plans at one Kansas airport"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@cwnet.com>]

Friday, March 17, 2000

Mammoth plans at one Kansas airport
GA News


PRATT, Kansas — Pratt Industrial (PTT) has always been a unique airport. The
facility north of this county seat of 10,000, about 75 miles west of
Wichita, was built in 1943 to serve as one of the nation’s first B-29 bases,
and featured three long runways to handle the heavyweight bombers built in
the Air Capital.

In 1948 the federal government ceded the property to the City of Pratt.
Fourteen years later, when it became evident that three runways were
excessive, the City leased two of them to a cattle-feeding operation.
Feedlots, which could handle up to 38,000 head of cattle, were built on the
concrete.

Last fall, while a bulldozer operator was moving dirt to construct a runoff
lagoon for the feedlot, several large bones were unearthed about twelve feet
under the surface. Work was halted and a call was put in to the Sternberg
Museum at Fort Hays State University (FHSU). Assistant museum director Greg
Liggett came to the site and identified the bones as those of a Pleistocene
Age mammoth.

“The most exciting was a femur (thigh bone),” said Liggett. “The bone is
fresh, soft and spongy, so it will be a challenge to recover it. Below the
mammoth is a red-brown bed, and above that is a light gray clay.” Liggett
said that when the clay was analyzed, they discovered that it was composed
of volcanic ash, which could signify some environmental change at the time
of the animal’s death.

Volunteers unearthed more bones, including a 10-12-foot section of tusk,
during a four-day dig in November, and the group will return in June for
another ten days.

The fossil will most likely be used for study rather than display, Liggett
said, although it is larger than a mammoth currently on display in the Hays
museum. He estimates that the Pratt Mammoth would stand about twelve feet
high at the shoulder.

The dig is located near an overrun area at the approach end of Runway 35, so
should pose no operational problems at the airport, according to Bill Parker
of the Pratt Airport Authority.

More information about the Mammoth is available on the FHSU web site,
www.fhsu.edu/sternberg. Pratt Industrial Airport, www. prattairport.com.

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