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Museum offering visitors chance to participate in summerlong ‘Explore Victoria Mammoth Hunt’

Victoria College’s Museum of the Coastal Bend is located at VC’s Main Campus, 2200 E. Red River Street in Victoria.

Victoria College’s Museum of the Coastal Bend is offering an “Explore Victoria Mammoth Hunt” competition this summer in partnership with Explore Victoria Texas, the City of Victoria’s Convention & Visitors Bureau. Participants can compete for vouchers to Uncle Mutt’s Bar-B-Q through Sept. 4.

Visitors to the museum can learn how to throw spears with atlatls, the primary weapons the Coastal Bend’s earliest peoples used to bring down mammoths and other Ice Age animals for food and clothing.

“This is a fun event for our visitors to have a chance to find out how the people in our region hunted these huge creatures with handmade weapons,” said Greg Garrett, museum experience educator. “Participants who hit the target by throwing a spear with an atlatl will win a voucher for a free Uncle Mutt’s Bar-B-Q sandwich.”

Three throws can be purchased for $1. During the museum’s expanded hours of 4 to 7 p.m. on Thursdays, participants can enter their name for a chance to win a Museum of the Coastal Bend T-shirt.

Victoria Convention & Visitors Bureau Director Joel Novosad is excited for the partnership between a premiere tourist attraction and a well-known local restaurant.

“This pairing is very authentic in that competition participants can ‘hunt’ for their food much like the early peoples of the region did,” Novosad said. “We plan to heavily promote this activity both to visitors to our community as well as Victoria residents.”

The museum is open on Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and closed on major holidays. Admission to the museum is pay-what-you-want.

For information on the museum and upcoming events, visit MuseumOfTheCoastalBend.org.