Mural #14
THE ICE AGE

Near the end of the Pleistocene (Ice Age) Era, approximately 11,000 years ago, our desert area was vastly different. We were a wet grassland full of lakes and rivers were mammals (megafauna) including giant ground sloth, mammoths and mastodons, sabertooth cats, dire wolves, small horses and llamas thrived. Bones and fiootprints of these animals can be found in the nearby rainbow basin area outside of town.

There is no definite answer as to why the megafauna died out. Three elements that could have contributed include:

Seismic activity resulting in the wet grasslands becoming desert.
Early man showed up and brought hunting and disease.
Finally, there was a period of cooling. Some animals may have migrated south to escape man and the cold.
Master Artist: Raymundo Valles Sept. 2024

Assistant Artists:

Kathy Fierro Juliette Tison

Marylynn Gibbon Rebecca McCollough

Savannah Valles Vanessa Schell

Vick Keaton

Location: 404 E. Main St. (Teplow Drug, parking lot behind store)