In the summer of 2016, Jackson-native paleontologist George Phillips and Michael Estes, a field volunteer with the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, picked their way along a forested creek bed in the Hell Creek Wildlife Management Area just north of New Albany, Miss. While parts of the creek had dried completely in the sun, others sections still had ankle-deep water interspersed with larger pools at least a few feet deep through which the two men carefully waded.

Phillips and Estes had come to Hell Creek to sample mineral deposits in the area known to yield crab fossils as part of a research paper on the species diversity of the region’s fossils. The steady flow of water often exposes fossils in the rocks of creek beds, which Phillips was scanning for as he shuffled along.

Suddenly, Phillips’ eyes fell on a strange shape in the water unlike anything he had seen on numerous expeditions in Mississippi. When he plucked the tiny object out of the shallow water and took a closer look, it was readily apparent that his find was a fossilized tooth, but the paleontologist was puzzled as to just what type of creature once bore it.

George Phillips (left) with WJTV reporter Walt Grayson (center) and Mississippi Museum of Natural Science volunteer Jon Cartier (right) pose for a photo near the site where Phillips discovered a ceratopsian tooth. Photo by James Starnes, Mississippi Office of Geology

Phillips took out his cell phone and photographed the tooth, sending the photo to a colleague named Lynn Harrell along with a request for help in identifying it. Harrell suspected the tooth was from a ceratopsian dinosaur, a group that includes triceratops and similar horned dinosaurs. Checking the tooth he’d found against images from certified online sources, Phillips was able to confirm that his discovery matched Harrell’s suggestion.

“Dinosaur fossils in that area are already very rare, and this is in fact the only one we’ve ever found out there,” Phillips told the Mississippi Free Press. “I had never even considered that it could be from a ceratopsian because it was a find so incongruous with what we know of eastern North America’s fossil record. Horned dinosaur fossils were previously completely unknown east of the Great Plains.”

After positively identifying his find, Phillips collaborated with a horned dinosaur expert named Dr. Andy Farke to publish a paper on the discovery the following year. By June 2018, the tooth went on display at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science. While the original remains there, the museum also had a replica made to put on display in a local museum just 18 miles away from where Phillips made his discovery: the Union County Heritage Museum (114 Cleveland St., New Albany).

‘Something for Everyone Here’

Originally established inside a former church sanctuary in 1991, the Union County Heritage Museum now occupies two city blocks in New Albany and includes six galleries, a library and The Inn, which is the historic birthplace of Mississippi native author William Faulkner.

In addition to the rock and fossil exhibit, some of the museum’s other permanent exhibits cover the Ingomar Mounds in Union County, historic furniture, vintage railroad cars, the history of various sports in Union County, rural doctors of the early 1900s and other topics.

“We’re actually located in the center of the Mississippi Hills National Heritage Area, which means many of our exhibits go beyond just the lines of Union County,” museum director Jill Smith said. “That means there’s something for everyone here, whether it’s our exhibits or just a nice place to sit out on the deck or have a picnic and watch the trains go by.”

The ceratopsian tooth that George Phillips discovered at the Hell Creek Wildlife Management Area is the only one of its kind ever found east of the Great Plains. Photo by George Phillips

Besides the replica of George Phillips’ historic ceratopsian tooth, the rock and fossil exhibit at the Union County Heritage Museum includes items such as the leg bone of a duck-billed dinosaur, crabs and ammonites, the skulls of a saber-toothed cat and a dire wolf, tusks and teeth from mastodons and wooly mammoths, among other artifacts.

Many of Phillips’ numerous discoveries are on display at the Union County museum as part of a partnership with the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, which has also hosted an annual traveling fossil roadshow at UCHM since 2008. During the fossil roadshow, UCHM invites visitors to bring in their own fossils for experts to identify. The museum also partners with the North Mississippi Gem and Mineral Society to host a gem show on the second Saturday of June every year.

“We deal with inquiries from all across the state concerning fossils people have found spanning 350 million years,” Phillips said. “The youngest ones, from around the Ice Age, are found in river valleys in the Golden Triangle and Natchez, while the oldest tend to be found in the northeastern part of the state.”

“The oldest and the youngest are often found alongside one another, in part because of Ice Age fossils being washed into Mississippi from further north,” he continued. “How does that work, you might wonder? You’ll just have to come to one of our shows to find out.”

The Ingomar Mounds are a series of 13 earthen structures that ancient Native American tribes constructed roughly 2,200 years ago. They are located roughly six miles south of New Albany, Miss. Photo courtesy Union County Heritage Museum

Another of the museum’s major exhibits concerns the Ingomar Mounds, a series of 13 earthen structures that ancient Native American tribes constructed roughly 2,200 years ago. Located roughly six miles south of New Albany, the Ingomar Mounds sit on 70 acres of what is today considered part of the Chickasaw homeland, though it is unknown what tribe originally constructed the mounds.

The Smithsonian Institution sent teams of explorers to study the mounds and to retrieve artifacts in the 1880s, 17 of which are currently on display in UCHM, including flint tools, pottery, Spanish silver and other objects.

UCHM’s exhibit also covers aspects of Chickasaw history in Union County, including Ishtehototah, the last king of the Chickasaw and signer of the Treaty of Pontotoc Creek in 1832. The treaty ceded roughly six million acres of Chickasaw land to the United States federal government, after which Ishtehototah led the Chickasaw to Oklahoma.

The Union County Heritage Museum hosts a competition during its annual Ingomar Mound Day in which visitors can try using an atlatl, a precursor to the modern hunting bow. Photo courtesy Union County Heritage Museum

The museum also hosts an annual Ingomar Mound Day in October, during which visitors can bring items they’ve found which may be artifacts to have visiting archeologists identify them. UCHM also hosts a competition in which visitors can try using an atlatl, a precursor to the modern hunting bow.

Sports is the centerpiece of another of UCHM’s permanent exhibits, one revolving around the history of various sports in Union County from professional basketball, baseball and football to big-game hunting and dog training. In addition to highlighting individual athletes, the museum contains a digital archive of more than 5,000 Mississippians telling their personal sports stories, which visitors can search for individuals or for schools and teams.

The museum also contains the William Faulkner Library, consisting of more than 800 volumes of Faulkner’s own books or literary criticism of his work. The library boasts a botanical garden as well, dedicated to plants Faulkner often wrote about in his works.

The Union County Heritage Museum hosts an annual Ingomar Mound Day in October, during which visitors can bring items they’ve found which may be artifacts to have visiting archeologists identify them. Photo courtesy Union County Heritage Museum

Each November, UCHM holds the Mississippi Hills Folklife and Craft Festival, a celebration of heritage crafts such as quilting, broom making and butter making. At other times, the museum hosts theater productions, pottery studios, weddings and other events.

The museum is open Tuesday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information, call 662-538-0014 or visit ucheritagemuseum.com.

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