George McJunkin: A Forgotten Story
Discovery of an Ice Age Bison Kill Site
February 17, 2023
Photo use courtesy Denver Museum of Nature and Science and a hardy thank you to them for their support.
A Black child born into slavery near Midway, Texas around 1851, he was raised by his parents and worked on a farm. His father, a blacksmith, taught him all about horses, riding and roping. As a free man after the Civil War, in 1867 he left a note saying “tell [my parents] I’m going to be a cowboy and look for a school” and he headed west. He went to New Mexico and began a career as a cowboy becoming one of the best horsemen in the Territory. A brilliant man, he learned to read and write and educated himself on a variety of subjects with a special interest in natural history.
He was a highly skilled horseman and cowboy and he quickly made a good name for himself. He was hired on as the wagon boss for the Hereford Park Ranch and later the manager of the great XYZ Ranch. In the early 1900s, he became Foreman of the Crowfoot Ranch near Folsom, New Mexico. McJunkin was respected and treated as an equal by the cattlemen and cowboys.
Because he was so well educated and spoke both English and fluent Spanish, he often acted as a mediator in land and other local disputes. As a lifelong learner, he was always observant of the landscape, geology, weather, and animals on his range. He carried a telescope on his saddle and valued the books he kept at his quarters on the Crowfoot Ranch. His knowledge and interest in nature led to one of the greatest discoveries in American science.
In 1908, rains caused tremendous flash floods that decimated most of the nearby town of Folsom, NM and surrounding areas. The loss of human life and domestic livestock was significant. After the flood McJunkin was repairing fences and searching for livestock when he came upon a most unusual site! About 15 feet down the wall of Wild Horse Arroyo he saw bones the floodwaters had exposed in the cut bank…BIG BONES!! George knew they weren’t from cattle, and they were far too big for modern bison. He quickly realized this was something very old and important.
McJunkin removed several bones and a bison skull and showed them to friends Carl Schwachheim, a naturalist from nearby Raton, and Fred Howarth. He hoped they might help him find someone of authority to examine them. He even contacted scientists from the Denver Museum of Natural History. But, to his great disappointment, no one except a few locals expressed any interest.
At the time, a scientific conflict surrounding a theory that humans did not exist in the Americas earlier than 3000 years ago may be why the Denver scientists dismissed McJunkin’s discovery; believing the bison bones far too old to have coexisted with humans.
Sadly, George McJunkin passed away in January of 1922, never realizing or receiving credit for his remarkable discovery. In 1926, Schwachheim and Howarth sent the bones and artifacts to curator of paleontology Howard Cook and J. D. Figgins at the Denver Museum of Natural History. Cook was astounded and immediately confirmed the bones were from Ice Age Bison antiquus.
Four years after McJunkin’s death, J. D. Figgins and Harold Cook visited Wild Horse Arroyo in 1926. Excavations produced 30 Ice Age bison bones later attributed to Bison antiquus. In the 1927 field season they made the most important discovery at the site; a spear point, dubbed a Folsom Point, situated between two Bison antiquus ribs!! Suddenly here was evidence of humans hunting bison that had become extinct more than 11,000 years ago.
Named The Folsom Site, the discoveries made there were the first to push back the presence of humans in the Americas to the Late Pleistocene.
The discovery of the Folsom Site happened because George McJunkin, a Black cowboy, ranch foreman, mediator, and educated naturalist, realized the bones of Wild Horse Arroyo were scientifically important and he never gave up bringing them to the attention of others. Today he is remembered, respected, and given the credit he so well deserves for his significant contributions.