Falls of the Ohio State Park"Center of Attention"
by: Troy McCormick (reprinted from Outdoor Indiana, May/June 1994)

It's a nature center, it's a museum, it's an educational facility. It's the Falls of the Ohio interpretive center! Situated on the river bluff overlooking the the 430- to 360-million-year-old fossil beds, the interpretive center is everything and more than people dreamed it would be.

More than five decades ago, local citizens and environmentalists began efforts to protect the unique Silurian and Devonian age fossil beds. Their plans included the building of a log cabin on the George Rogers Clark Homesite to serve as a nature center. That modest vision grew into the $4.9 million, 16,000 square-foot interpretive center at the Falls of the Ohio State Park, Clarksville, Indiana.

The planning, design work, and fund raising efforts successfully blended the talents of experts and volunteers from federal agencies, state government, museums, and private organizations. At a time when many national and state projects were put on the budgetary back burner, private fund raising efforts succeeded in raising $2.5 million to complete the project.

Architecturally speaking, the building is as unique as the geological formation it was built to interpret. The horizontal bands of Indiana limestone and colored masonry brick mimic the stratigraphic layers of the limestone of the fossil beds below. The building's low profile and earth-tone colors further allow it to blend in with the natural environment.

The interpretive center exists to tell the more than 400-million-year story of the Falls of the Ohio. A special blend of multi-media and exhibits effectively accomplish this amazing feat.

The 15-minute orientation video presentation takes place in the 102-seat auditorium. The three laser disk driven video projectors create a video image 7.5 feet high by 30 feet long for a full-impact production. The audio/visual presentation uses some extraordinary underwater filming that provides the first-ever video of a "living" Devonian coral bed. Specially designed coral replicas and trilobite costumes fitted to horseshoe crabs allow for a one-of-a-kind experience. Through the video, the audience travels under the ocean surface to view the corals and animals interacting with the currents of the sea as they would have done some 400 million years ago.

For the first time in the history of the Falls of the Ohio, visitors can journey to the park and learn about the Falls any time of the year. The interpretive center is open 12 months of the year, and even during the winter flooding of fossil beds, visitors can rely on exhibits and park staff to interpret the site for them. Experts have created more than $1 million in exhibits for the center. The island exhibit in the lobby features a composite representation of all themes found in the main exhibit gallery.

The full-size mammoth skeleton dominates the lobby and reaches 14 feet above the floor. Coral reefs, wading birds, a bison, prehistoric hunter, beaver and others complete the island exhibit. Overhead, a giant, 18-foot-long Devonian fish "swims" with the modern fish of the Ohio River (including five- and six-foot long paddlefish, gar, and catfish). As a background to the island exhibit, the lobby wall carries an 18- by 27-foot hand painted mural depicting the Falls of the Ohio prior to any dams, locks, bridges, or other man-made structures.

The main exhibit gallery holds approximately 2,500 square feet of exhibits chronicling the prehistory and history of the Falls. A Silurian-Devonian diorama recreates the corals and other invertebrate animals of the ancient oceans, and a four-foot-tall skull of the 30-foot-long Dunkleosteus represents the fish of the Devonian ocean. Large fern trees depict some of the forests occurring 360 million years ago.

A total of 78 exhibits take the visitor through time, discussing prehistoric man, Native Americans, the legend of the Welsh Prince Madoc, settlement, mapping, river navigation, and more. Interactive exhibits for children and adults include reproduction pilot houses from a steamboat and a modern tow boat. Visitors can stand at the wheel and pilot themselves down the mighty Ohio River.

Originally, the Falls of the Ohio boasted 550 acres of exposed fossil beds - such an impressive phenomenon that scientists, geologists, and paleontologists from around the world have traveled here to study them. An exhibit on early naturalists discusses some of those scientists, including John James Audubon, Rafinesque, Dr. George Greene, Dr. Ashel Clapp and more. Detailed explanations of the natural plant communities and wildlife of the falls, including pocket prairies and Passenger pigeons, make the exhibits informative and eminently readable.

Other exciting features of the facility include an Ohio River observation room with 18-foot-tall windows for viewing the fossil beds and river below. Situated more than 40 feet above the river, the observation room and outdoor observation deck provide splendid viewing opportunities. The wildlife observation room also features a full, wall-sized viewing window through which visitors can watch feeding songbirds or bathing raccoons. A specially concealed, exterior microphone allows the visitor to listen in on the songs and chatterings of the animals as they visit the feeders or bubbling fountain.

The gift shop sells some unique items associated with the geology and natural areas of the Falls, while two educational classrooms and a research library provide for visiting students, historians, and school groups requesting interpretive programs.

The state park office and interpretive staff are located within the interpretive center and remain available year-round to assist with group tours and programs. Staff offer free fossil bed tours from June 1 through October 31 each year. While the Falls of the Ohio State Park is the only state park in Indiana without an entrance gate, the interpretive center does charge a small entrance fee.