Cincinnati’s woolly mammoths make the trek to Union Terminal

CINCINNATI (WXIX) - Two Cincinnati mainstays made their trek to Union Terminal Wednesday, marking the beginning of new renovations coming to the Cincinnati Museum Center’s new facility.

Taking post outside of the museum’s new research, education and collections center are two 2,000-pound adult woolly mammoth statues. The life-size creatures are made of a steel frame that is wrapped in fiberglass and topped with a bronze powder mixed into a gel coat, which is what gives them a mint green patina.

The iconic figures have been a part of Cincinnati’s culture for over 40 years, depicting their ancestors who roamed the area 20,000 to 10,000 years ago, the Cincinnati Museum Center says.

Originally, the woolly mammoths were located outside the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History before migrating outside the Cincinnati Museum Center’s Geier Collections and Research Center. But Wednesday, they made their trek closer to home on Dalton Avenue.

The new research, education and collections facility will become a “state-of-the-art campus” where the museum center will share research with its visitors and offer opportunities for people to learn.

More than 6 million objects from the region will be divided up into the museum’s collections, which consists of zoology, mineralogy, archaeology, history objects, fine art, manuscripts, vertebrate and invertebrate paleontology and moving images and photographs.

There are also two 800-pound juvenile woolly mammoths in the family.

Those statues will join the adults at a later time.

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