Sue, the famous T-Rex found near Faith, South Dakota in 1990, calls Chicago’s Field Museum home. Recently, another Black Hills area town has been rubbing elbows with the famous windy-city museum.

Hot Springs and its well-known historic Mammoth Site, have played an integral role in the creation of the Field Museum’s newest feature exhibit “Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age.”

Paleontologist Larry Agenbroad is one of the folks who discovered and helped preserve the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs and he served as a key consultant in the creation of the new Field Museum display.

Agenbroad, who has been studying the prehistoric elephant-like mammals in Hot Springs since 1974, contributed some of his extensive knowledge to the unique exhibit in Chicago. It’s so unique, in fact, that it has even caught the attention of the folks at Smithsonian magazine.

The current (April 2010) issue of Smithsonian has a really interesting article that digs deeper into the relationship between the history of mammoths and the role they played in shaping some American scientific beliefs.

The Smithsonian article discusses the history of how the first mammoth remains were discovered in the U.S. and later mentions Thomas Jefferson’s fascination with with giant creatures. It goes on to compare the excavation of mammoth fossils from places like the Hot Springs Mammoth Site to America’s 18th century emergence from the shadow of European rule.

It really is an interesting read – the full version of the Smithsonian article is several pages long and details more of the mammoths’ historical significance, the new Field Museum exhibit and how the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs plays into it all.