🌿 RelaxedDay trip · from Cincinnati, OH
Rabbit Hash & Big Bone Lick — A Dog-Mayor General Store and the Birthplace of American Paleontology
A short, quirky day trip southwest of Cincinnati into the river-bottom corner of Boone County, Kentucky, where two of the region's most improbable landmarks sit within a few miles of each other. Rabbit Hash is a tiny river hamlet frozen somewhere around 1900, famous nationwide for two things: its 1831 general store, still creaking and cluttered and open for business, and its long tradition of electing a dog as town mayor. A few minutes inland lies Big Bone Lick State Historic Site, the marshy sulphur springs where Ice Age mammoths and mastodons once mired themselves — bones so plentiful that Thomas Jefferson dispatched an expedition here, earning the place its title as the birthplace of American paleontology. A small live bison herd still grazes the grounds. It is an easy, unhurried day of Americana, natural history, and river scenery, capped by good country cooking.
Rabbit Hash General Store — where the mayor is a dogBig Bone Lick State Historic Site — birthplace of American paleontology & its bison herd
Day 1 — Rabbit Hash & Big Bone Lick, KY
Day 1 — Rabbit Hash & Big Bone Lick, KY
🚗 1 hr 40 min driving📍 4 stops
🌅
Morning
🚗
Drive
Cincinnati, OH → Rabbit Hash, KY
45 min8:00 AM → 8:45 AM
Rabbit Hash General Store
★ 4.7Built in 1831 on the banks of the Ohio River, the Rabbit Hash General Store is the beating heart of a hamlet that time has almost entirely passed by. Its sagging plank floors, potbelly stove, and shelves of penny candy, folk crafts, and cold drinks make it feel less like a shop than a living museum you can still buy something in. The store burned in a 2016 fire and was painstakingly rebuilt with its original timbers salvaged from the river — a testament to how fiercely the community guards it. Rabbit Hash is nationally famous for electing dogs as its honorary mayors, a fundraising tradition that has drawn worldwide press; ask the shopkeepers who currently holds the office. Live bluegrass often spills off the porch on weekends.
8:45 AM📍 See location
🍽️
Lunch
Rabbit Hash Riverfront & Old Iron Bridge
Just below the general store, the Ohio River slides past a quiet gravel landing where the ferry once crossed and the town's few surviving 19th-century buildings cluster. It is a fine spot to sit on a bench, watch the barges and river traffic, and take in the wooded Indiana shore opposite. Nearby, the graceful old bridges upstream give a sense of how central the river once was to daily life here. The scene is unhurried and photogenic, and rarely crowded on a weekday.
9:45 AM📍 See location
☀️
Afternoon
🚗
Drive
Rabbit Hash, KY → Big Bone Lick State Historic Site, KY
15 min12:00 PM → 12:15 PM
Big Bone Lick State Historic Site
★ 4.6Big Bone Lick is where the salt-sulphur springs of a boggy valley trapped and preserved the remains of Ice Age megafauna — mammoths, mastodons, ground sloths, and ancient bison — in such abundance that it became one of the most important fossil sites in North America. Excavations here in the 1700s, including an expedition commissioned by Thomas Jefferson in 1807, effectively launched the science of vertebrate paleontology on the continent, earning the site its billing as the birthplace of American paleontology. A small museum displays fossils and skeletons, and an easy boardwalk trail leads to the marshy salt springs where reconstructed life-size mammoths stand mired as they once were. Best of all, a live herd of American bison grazes a fenced pasture on the grounds — a nod to the animals that trailed here for the salt for millennia.
12:15 PM📍 See location
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Evening
🍽️ Dinner5:00 PM
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The Roebling Point / Burlington Country Table
A short drive back toward Burlington, the Boone County seat, brings you to a cluster of relaxed country restaurants and taverns ideal for an early dinner before heading home. Expect hearty regional cooking — fried chicken, catfish, country ham, and homemade pie — served in the unpretentious style that suits a day spent among general stores and bison. Burlington's small historic square, with its 1889 courthouse, is a pleasant place to stretch your legs before the meal. It is the natural last stop of the day, letting the afternoon light fade before the easy drive back across the river to Cincinnati.
2 options · tap to switch
🚗
Drive
Burlington, KY → Cincinnati, OH
40 min6:00 PM → 6:40 PM
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