The boys were intrigued and reached for the branches

During the summer of 1937, Otisville locals Dale Smith, aged 13, and Everett Betts, aged 7, noticed branches sticking up in the waters of Picnic Lake. The boys were intrigued and reached for the branches

, only to discover the “wood” wasn’t really wood at all…
The boys pulled out the antlers and skeletal remains of a huge 6- by 6-foot elk rack. After leaving the skull and bones behind, they took the antlers home and hung them up years afterward. In the 1980s, Smith donated the antlers to the Otisville Area Historical Association. The museum staff sent the antlers to a lab in Florida for carbon dating testing. The results shocked the town—not only were the antlers much older than the original guess of 70 years, but they were remnants of a now-extinct species of elk, the Eastern elk. The carbon dating results posited that the antlers could be from as early as 1520, but were most likely from between 1640 and 1660. Today, the antlers are on display at the Otisville Area Historical Association’s museum. We covered this unique discovery in a past issue of Michigan History magazine, did you read it?

Each issue of Michigan History features a “Facts & Finds” section, detailing a unique historical discovery in our state, as well as interesting feature stories and other special sections.

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