An entrance to the Mastodon State Historic Site in Imperial will be closed for about a week while work on Seckman Road is underway.
The western entrance to the site, known as the picnic site entrance, is scheduled to be closed beginning Monday, Oct. 30, and should reopen by Friday, Nov. 3.
The nearby museum and trails at the historic site, 1050 Charles J. Becker Drive, will remain open during regular park hours, although the Limestone Hill Trail crosswalk on Seckman Road has been closed. Hikers are advised to access that trail through the site’s museum parking lot.
Park officials said the closure of the picnic area will be dependent on weather and may last more than a week, depending on the progress of construction.
While the site’s picnic entrance is closed, a new one will be built.
In late September, the Jefferson County Public Works Department began work on a project to improve the heavily traveled 1-mile stretch of Seckman Road between the West Outer Road and the western entrance to the historic site.
The eastbound lane of the two-lane Seckman Road has been closed, and a temporary traffic signal allows traffic to pass through the construction zone in one direction, then the other. That system is expected to be in place through late summer or early fall of 2024, and no right turns will be allowed out of the park during the construction.
As part of the overall project, a hill that crests in front of the main entrance will be leveled off, the entrance to the site will be realigned to make it perpendicular to Seckman Road to improve sight distances and a left-turn lane will be added for westbound traffic to enter the site.
Shoulders will be added, and the road will be raised out of the 100-year flood plain.
PCX Construction in Arnold was the lower of two bidders for the job at $4,207,375, with federal funding paying for 70 percent of the work and 30 percent coming from the county’s share of a countywide 1/2-cent sales tax for road and bridge improvements.