Nature Bulletin No. 389-A   October 3, 1970
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
George W. Dunne, President
Roland F. Eisenbeis, Supt. of Conservation

****:MOUNDS BUILDERS

On a river bank, here in Cook County, there is a low narrow mound 
about 40 feet long. It is wavy and tapers to a point at one end, like a 
snake. The jaws of the head are open, as if about to swallow a little 
round mound which may represent an egg or, if built to celebrate an 
eclipse, be a symbol for the sun or the moon. This is an effigy mound, 
or crude image, similar to the larger ones found in Wisconsin and the 
borders of neighboring states. Scientists say they were built by a 
northern race of Indians who disappeared about 200 years before 
Columbus discovered America. This is the only one of many mounds, 
formerly found along the rivers and creeks of Cook County, which has 
not been destroyed. So, don't ask us where it is.

On the east bank of the DesPlaines River, west of Park Ridge, there 
used to be four mounds. Three were elliptical in shape -- about 40 or 50 
feet long and less than 30 feet wide -- raised about 3-l/2 feet above the 
surrounding ground. The fourth was an effigy mound, with a body 40 
feet long and four legs, supposed to represent a bear. About 400 feet 
north of what is now North Ave. and east of Thatcher Ave., there was a 
group of five oval-shaped mounds, none more than 25 feet in diameter, 
each surrounded by a trench. The skeletons and artifacts excavated from 
these mounds were destroyed in the great fire of 1871 but they were 
declared to be those of a southern race of prehistoric Indians.

In the office of the Forest Home Cemetery*, in Forest Park, are 
preserved the relics found in seven mounds, and the cache pits near 
them, formerly located on the east side of the DesPlaines River north of 
Roosevelt Road. At least two of these mounds were built after the 
French fur traders came here, because, in addition to copper nuggets 
and artifacts of stone -- axes, war clubs, spearheads, arrowheads and 
pipes -- there were small brass kettles, iron tomahawks, steel knives and 
silver ornaments that Indians did not have until the white man came. 
Some of the silver articles were stamped: "Montreal".

Along the bluffs of the Illinois River are hundreds of burial mounds, 
The largest, the Dickson Mound in Fulton County, was originally 
crescent-shaped and measured 550 feet along the curve. At Cahokia, 
near East St. Louis, are the remains of what must have been a city: 
nearly a hundred mounds dominated by the largest one in America -- a 
flat-topped pyramid covering 16 acres and rising a hundred feet above 
the flat bottomland -- apparently built only for a temple.

In the valleys of the Ohio River and its tributaries are thousands of 
mounds in various shapes and sizes. Most common are the conical 
mounds, some small, some very large. Others were evidently 
fortifications, like Fort Ancient on the Little Miami River, which has 
miles of moats and walls enclosing a hundred acres in two rudely 
triangular areas connected by a winding passageway. Within it are 
several burial mounds. Most famous of all effigy mounds is the Great 
Serpent Mound, now an Ohio state park, which measures 1330 feet 
from head to tail and has an egg-shaped mound in front of its yawning 
mouth.

The mound builders were not a mysterious race that came from 
nowhere and suddenly vanished. They were Indians who became highly 
civilized, skilled in agriculture and the arts of making pottery and 
ornaments, and traveled far to trade for copper, shells, obsidian and 
other materials from all over North America. The northern and southern 
races undoubtedly met and traded at Chicago. They degenerated and 
were conquered by more savage tribes but they were the ancestors of 
the redmen whom the Europeans found here.
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December 2001 addendum
*Apparently, the Village of Forest Park Public Library houses these items
currently.