Prehistoric Mounds and Archeological Sites of Kansas

The impact of Native Americans in Kansas is visually evident, extending beyond the name of our state, counties, towns, streets, and streams. Early maps documented different mounds, elevations, and other interesting anomalies that dotted the Great Plains. These mounds were carefully drawn alongside the windmills, schoolhouses, churches, and farms built by white settlers. Other mounds were excavated, flattened, and destroyed in the name of progress by the first white men who found them.

The Five Mounds on one side of the Osage Trust Lands line in Wilson county. Another group of mounds, The Three Mounds, are on the other side of the line. These are all natural mounds, or “watch towers.” Source

Kansas was once home to people we call mound builders. They built earthen structures in different shapes and sizes that served many purposes. They were often part of larger villages that included complex infrastructure, like The Great Settlement (Etzanoa) in modern-day Arkansas City. Two Etzanoa burial mounds are located on the grounds of the Arkansas City Country Club.

According to A Standard History of Kansas, “there never was a systematic exploration of the known mound and ancient Indian village sites of Kansas, and a large part of those which were first noticed when the state was settled have been obliterated by the cultivation of the soil or by the acts of careless despoilers and most of the valuable relics were lost or scattered.”

The Whiteford (Price) Archeological Site in Salina, commonly known as Indian Burial Pit or Salina Burial Pit, is a famous local example of the obliteration of such history. The site once consisted of about fifteen mounds and other earthen structures that were used between 1000-1350 C.E. An amateur archeologist unearthed the contents of a burial pit containing at 145 indigenous people. The landowners destroyed the mounds and put the burial pit on display for tourists. They profited from the gruesome attraction and their gift shop for decades. The site was finally closed in 1989 and the remains were re-buried.

Source

The mounds and elevations that were not flattened by settlers or destroyed in the name of progress (or amusement) are just hills to most Kansans today. But our state is still very rich in archaeological sites—about 15,000 or so that we know of.

Kansas Indian Mounds and Archeological Sites

Here are some of the sites in Kansas that I have learned about.

Little Bear Mound, Wilson County

Chief Little Bear (Me-tso-shin-ka) was an Osage Chief who died from pneumonia (or consumption) in 1867 was buried in Wilson county. For a while, his burial spot was known as Little Bear Mound and it was a local landmark. Settlers used Little Bear Mound to gain a better view of the the growing town of Neodesha. Later, settlers slowly destroyed the burial mound by removing the stone cairn that covered his body, and then the bones and personal items of the Chief. By 1880, it was common knowledge that Chief Little Bear’s “bones [were] … stolen away by a white man.“

When members of the Osage tribe returned to his burial site for an annual ceremony and found the grave opened and its contents stolen, they were prepared to burn Neodesha to the ground, but ultimately chose not to.

In 1905, a cement plant was built in Neodesha to manufacture Indian brand bricks, proudly made with the rock “from Little Bear mound, from under the grave of Little Bear.” The cement was shipped all over, including to the Frisco Railway to build bridges and Omaha, Nebraska for paving and sewers. The cement plant was very popular, at one point receiving 3,000 letters in a single day. But the plant shut down after just three years, saying there was no market for concrete anymore. The closure came after numerous serious accidents resulting in personal injury lawsuits, and several disasters.

“Neodesha’s First Inhabitants” by Bernard Joseph Steffen. On the right side of the panels, Chief Little Bear waves to Dr. T. Blakeslee, a physician responsible for much of the peacefulness between the two cultures. Little Bear’s wife and daughter (Ouasash) stand behind him. Blakeslee, mounted on horseback, waves back. Source

Wadsworth-Peine Mound, Anderson County

Even though two indigenous people were found buried at Wadsworth-Peine Mound (or Steamboat Mound), the Kansas Geological Survey confirms the mound is a natural feature called an inselberg. It’s been described as “a sandbank from an ancient riverbed that flowed through … now-eroded layers.”

There’s quite a bit of documentation about Peine Mound, as it was used as a lookout by abolitionist John Brown, which is why it’s also been called John Brown’s Lookout Point. What it was used for before John Brown made it famous isn’t known, but some locals say there are more graves on top of the mound, so it was likely an important landmark for indigenous people before foreign settlers arrived.

Photo by Blair Schneider and Alan Peterson, KGS. Source

Bluemont Mound, Pottawatomie County

Bluemont Mound was a documented burial ground that sat atop Bluemont Hill (now Bluemont Scenic Overlook). The mound was excavated in 1879 and beneath it there were several human skeletons, animal skeletons, and indigenous artifacts. The burial mound had a cairn on top that was removed around 1889. It’s not clear where the stones or the contents of the mound went, but by 1899 all traces of the mound had been destroyed by men constructing an underground water reservoir.

Bluemont Mound as drawn by Jacob V. Brower in 1899. Source

Twin Mounds, Labette County

Twin Mounds are two mounds that are said to appear identical from the right angle, and both are said to be natural formations. This area was once roamed by the bands of Little Beaver, Chetopa, Big Hill Joe, and Black Dog, so these mounds were likely important landmarks to them before they became important to settlers. There’s a third rounded mound south of the twins that is is taller and visible from US 400. The county road angles slightly and then curves to go around this 1,000 foot mound.

Source

There is also a ghost town called Twin Mound in Douglas county, The original schoolhouse, a pioneer cemetery, and the two mounds are all that remain of the town. You can also find Twin Mounds in Fredonia, which are 175-million-year-old geological anomalies. One of the mounds has a park on top called South Mound Park, which Fredonia residents say is a “perfect place to watch the Independence Day fireworks display.”

Prehistoric Burial Mounds, Multiple Counties

Recently, 124 previously unlocated prehistoric burial mounds were found in a five county area in northeast Kansas. Jakob Hanschu, graduate of anthropology and geography at Kansas State University, created a predictive model to pinpoint the locations of previously documented, but unlocated, burial mounds. These sites were able to be accurately located, cataloged and, most importantly, preserved from human destruction.

Jakob Hanschu won the Society for American Archaeology/Institute for Field Research Undergraduate Student Poster Award in 2018 for his independent research that led to the identification of these 124 prehistoric burial sites. Source

Walker’s Mound, Montgomery County

Walker’s Mound is described as a 955 foot hill. It was an important landmark for early settlers, as the newspaper aligned readers with terms like “west of Walker Mound,” “southwest of Walker Mound about a mile,” and so on. It’s near several other mounds, including Bender Mounds, Tackett Mound, and Round Mound, all of which would have been visible from the top of this mound. There’s a county water tower on top of the mound today.

Source

Mount Chetopa, Oxford, Sumner County

The elevation north of Oxford, Kansas was first known to settlers as Mount Chetopah. Later they would call it Sleigh’s Hill after a settler who claimed the land that contained the elevation. Osage Chief Chetopah and his band were living on a mound north of Oxford in the late 1860’s, and this was that mound. At that time, Oxford (or Napawala) was situated at the end of Black Dog Trail and was a favorite camp and important landmark for many bands of the Osage, and specifically Chief Chetopah.

Chief Chetopah, a “superb physical specimen and highly intelligent,” is pictured here with the First Delegation Osage Indians in 1873. He died in 1877 from tuberculosis. Many people have claimed to be the one who raided his grave and stole the contents, but he was probably buried somewhere in Pawhuska. Source

Mount Chetopa, or Sleigh’s Hill, is a natural formation. The landowner quarried the rock from the hill and it was used to build structures in Oxford, like the Old Oxford Mill, and many others that still stand today.

Mount Chetopa via Google Earth Pro

Settlers also tried drilling for oil on Mount Chetopa but gave up after drilling 3500 feet and finding nothing.

Elevation of Mount Chetopa

Timber Creek Mound, Hartzell Mound, Woods Mound & Other Mounds at Milford Lake, Multiple Counties

Milford Lake, or Milford Reservoir, is the largest man-made lake in Kansas. The recreational area touches four counties. Before the area was flooded, at least eighteen prehistoric sites were known, including burial mounds with human remains. After the area was flooded, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers surveyed just 15% of the public land and found thirty-two additional historic sites (remnants of pioneer settlements), an arrowhead, and a bison tooth. A later study that found 124 prehistoric burial sites included counties that surround Milford Lake, including a few that the USACE missed.

Source

Ancient Fortifications, Wilson County

Once upon a time, some “ancient fortifications” dubbed Neodesha Fort (also Spanish Fort and Fort De Soto), could be found north of Neodesha. These were two earthen mounds shaped liked horseshoes with an oblong mound in the center. There were also other mounds, lodge sites, and surface artifacts like arrowheads, stone hammers, and pottery in this area. Artifacts were still turning up from the ground in the 1990’s.

By the time the Historical Atlas of Wilson County was published in 1881, half of the earthwork had been flattened. By 1931, just a small ridge of one of the earthen mounds could be seen next to a large oil tank. The landowner said he had smoothed out the ground to make it even. Later the county road was changed to a curve that goes over where the remaining ridge was.

Source

The now long-gone earthen structures were probably built sometime between 1475 to 1700, and the horseshoe-shaped mounds were likely not a fort, but what we call a council circle. According to a 2017 report, the earthwork has several similarities to other council circles, like the preserved Sharp’s Creek Council Circle near Lindsborg or the excavated council circle at the Tobias-Thompson Complex near Lyons, or the three in Rice county and two in McPherson county that were explored in the 1950’s. The mounds near Neodesha were similar to other earthwork attributed to Wichita people.

Typically, the council circle consists of a low central mound, 20 to 30 yards in diameter, around which there is a discontinuous shallow ditch or a series of oblong depressions placed end to end, and forming a roughly circular, subcircular, or elliptical pattern In some cases, there seems to have been two ditches or discontinuous depressed zones concentrically placed around the central mound.

Waldo Wedel, After Coronado in Quivira. The Kansas Historical Quarterly 34:369-385, 1968

The Neodesha fort. At the time this book was published in 1959, the fortifications were mostly obliterated. Source

Spring Branch Mound, Riley County

The Harahey burial mound in Riley county was first documented in 1899. It was part of the Spring Branch Village Site, or Macy Site. It was completely excavated by Jacob B. Brower in the 19th century and he found the bones of a single person along with several artifacts.

In the 1990’s, construction of a bridge led to salvage excavations at this site, and they uncovered and removed extensive prehistoric artifacts from the area that date to the Early Ceramic period. Archeologists believe that this village was active between 6-654 A.D., but any evidence of it has been destroyed or removed.

Spring Branch Mound as drawn by Jacob V. Brower in 1899. “Harahey” likely indicates some ancestral connection to Pawnee. Source

Verdi Mounds (Buff Mounds), Wilson County

The Verdi Mounds are a natural formation that contained a shale “not discovered as of yet in any part of the country” when the Kansas Buff Brick and Manufacturing Company got ahold of it in the early 1900’s. The mounds were known as Buffville (or Buff City or Buffington or Verdi or Vanceville) and the company mined shale from the mounds and turned it into brick. These Buffville Bricks were distributed nationwide, and several local homes and structures were built with these bricks, like the Hull Building. Wilson Medical Center was also said to be built with Buff brick.

The shale in the mounds was depleted after years of mining. Kansas Buff Brick was sold to the United Brick & Tile Co. in 1929, and they closed the Buffville plant not long after. The site was cleared of all signs of the brick factory in 1945. Now a portion of the mound is a large depression filled with water that kids enjoyed swimming in, when it was allowed.

Source

Parks Mound, Wilson County

Just about two miles northwest of Verdi Mounds is a small mound once called Parks Mound. The mound was mostly on the 160 acres owned by Dr. Hiram S. Parks, and he built his residence at the base of the mound in the 1870’s. There were also two other buildings at the base of the mound in 1881.

Image via Google Earth Pro

Downtown Burial Mound (Wyandot National Burial Ground, Huron Indian Cemetery), Wyandotte County

In July of 1843, 664 members of the Wyandotte Nation were moved from Ohio to Kansas. While camped along the Missouri River, illness went through the camp and 50 to 100 of the Wyandots died. Their bodies were carried across the river to the Kansas Territory, to a ridge which overlooked the Kansas and Missouri Rivers and Kansas City’s Wyandot National Burying Ground was established.

By the 1890s, the Huron Indian Cemetery was prime land and developers, wanting to purchase the cemetery land, negotiated with the Wyandotte Nation in Oklahoma. In 1906, the Secretary of the Interior was instructed to sell the land with the remains to be moved to the Quindaro Cemetery.

The daughters of Andrew Syrenus Conley (who is buried in the cemetery) moved onto their family’s burial ground, erected a small shelter that was nicknamed “Fort Conley,” padlocked the gate, and posted a sign, “Trespass at Your Peril.” They maintained a vigil for over 2 years and in 1909 Eliza (Lyda) Burton Conley became the first Native American woman admitted to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Although the court was sympathetic it didn’t not rule in her favor.

In 1913 Congress repealed the bill authorizing the sale of the Huron Indian Cemetery, but the dispute between those wanting to preserve the cemetery, and those wanting to develop the land continued year after year. One year Lyda Conley was arrested for shooting a policeman in the Huron Indian Cemetery. Even the placing of the Huron Indian Cemetery on the National Register of Historic Sites years later in 1971 didn’t stop those wanting to exploit the land. Controversy continued until 1997 as the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma tried to turn the cemetery into a gambling place. There finally seems to be [peace] at the cemetery, as the Oklahoma Wyandottes have their 7th Street Casino in the adjacent former Scottish Rite Temple.

It is believed that there are 400 – 600 bodies buried in Huron Indian Cemetery, though only a small number of the graves are marked. In 1991 the City of Kansas City Kansas, installed over 70 new grave markers, but the new markers and few remaining original grave markers continue to vandalized.

Kansas Travel

Haystack Mound and Petroglyph Site, Ellsworth County

Haystack Mound is one of many known pre-Columbian sites in Ellsworth county, and one of a few known indigenous rock art sites in Kansas. The mound is on the National Register of Historic Places and is not open to the public.

Image via Google Earth Pro

Inscription Rock at Kanopolis State Park is another protected petroglyph site in Ellsworth county. But by the time these petroglyphs were documented, they were intermingled with “the usual profusion of recent dates, names, and initials left by picnic parties, sightseers, and others.” Inscription Rock is closed to the public.

Unnamed Mound, Elk County

A mound was documented in 1881 just south of the Osage Diminished Reserve line, slightly northwest of Elk Falls, along the Mound Branch of Elk Creek. It’s very likely that the short Mound Branch Creek got it’s name from the mound it goes around.

Source

The mound is still there today and has a clearing on the top where there are no trees. It’s not clear if this mound is natural or man-made, but the Osage were living here when the U.S. government paid them a “princely price” for the land.

Source

Kansas Towns Named After Mounds

Blue Mound in Linn county was so named by settlers because the mound was said to look blue from a distance. The mound was an important landmark along the Oregon and California trails and let travelers know the Wakarusa River was near. Early settlers believed the mound was man-made, as it had several tiers, marker trees, and a flat top. Many artifacts have been found on and around the mound by locals.

Half Mound was a town in Jefferson county that sat at the base of a 200 foot mound. Near where the town once stood are interesting terrain features, like this raised earthwork circle that looks suspiciously like a council circle. Half Mound had everything other towns did, including a train station, but it fizzled out of existence after the post office closed in 1914.

Half Mound, Kansas. Source

Mound City in Linn county is said to be named for a nearby elevation called Sugar Mound comprised of mostly limestone and shale. There was another settlement named Sugar Mound on the other side of the hill, but it went extinct. The first county convention took place on Sugar Mound, and so did the Hamilton Massacre.

Mound Valley in Labette county was named for the mound-like hills that border the west side of the town, and Moundridge (originally Christian) in McPherson county was named for the elevation it sits on.