Field Notes Ohio

Ohio's parks, forests and wildlife areas with camping, the ancient mounds beside them, and the Buckeye Trail that links them. Stories, trails, wildlife, and where to eat and fuel up nearby. Book campsites on ReserveOhio.
Try:
The Buckeye TrailA 1,444-mile blue-blazed loop around Ohio, with all 26 sections.
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Mounds & Earthworks43 ancient sites, including the Great Serpent Mound and the Newark Earthworks.
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Historic Sites39 places, from Fort Steuben and Zoar to Camp Chase and the Rankin House, from the frontier to the Civil War.
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Road Trips33 drives, from the Lincoln Highway to the Morgan Heritage Trail.
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Lake Erie Beaches20 public beaches from Conneaut to Toledo and the islands, with a map.
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Oddities & Roadside Attractions19 giants, ghosts and folk-art stops, plus a Mothman just over the line.
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Caves & Caverns12 show caverns, recess caves and rock shelters, with a map.
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Waterfalls34 falls from the Cuyahoga Valley to the Hocking Hills, with trail notes and a map.
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Explore Ohio

One map for every park, mound, historic site, beach, cave, waterfall and oddity in the app.

Lake ErieWest Virginia27 places277 places77 places73 places35 places519 places1913 places1319 places1916 places168 places810 places1010 places109 places98 places820 places204 places43 places3Barkcamp State Park4 places47 places77 places76 places69 places917 places173 places3Harrison Lake State Park2 places2Forked Run State Park3 places32 places26 places610 places103 places32 places2

Tap a symbol for a preview, or search for a place. Open the key to show or hide categories.

117 parks in 7 regions

Mounds & Earthworks

43 ancient sites across Ohio
Built by the Adena, Hopewell and Fort Ancient peoples

Ohio holds one of the greatest concentrations of ancient earthworks in North America. The Adena raised conical burial mounds from about 800 BCE to 100 CE. The Hopewell, from about 100 BCE to 500 CE, built vast geometric circles, squares and octagons that line up with the sun and moon. Later, from about 1000 CE, the Fort Ancient people lived in villages across the region, and they may have built the serpent and the animal effigies.

In 2023 eight of these sites, at Newark, Fort Ancient and near Chillicothe, became Ohio's first UNESCO World Heritage Site. Most of these places are sacred to Native people today. Stay on the paths, never walk on the earthworks, and leave anything you find where it lies.

43 sites
Serpents & effigies

The rarest earthworks in Ohio: animals and a serpent made of earth.

Great Serpent Mound

Peebles · Adams County · Southern Ohio
A gigantic earthen snake on a hilltop over Ohio Brush Creek, built by a people whose name is still argued over.
Can visitNational Historic Landmark
About 300 BCE or about 1070 CE

Alligator Effigy Mound

Granville · Licking County · Central Ohio
A mystery animal on a hill above Granville, one of only two effigy mounds in Ohio.
Can visitNational Register of Historic Places
About AD 800 to 1270 (excavation dates AD 1170 to 1270)

Tremper Mound

West Portsmouth · Scioto County · Southern Ohio
Once mapped as an animal effigy alongside Serpent Mound, it turned out to be the footprint of a burned ceremonial building.
National Register of Historic Places
100 BCE to 500 CE
Great earthworks

Enormous circles, squares and hilltop enclosures, several of them World Heritage sites.

Newark Earthworks

Newark & Heath · Licking County · Central Ohio
Enormous circles, an octagon and a square built about 2,000 years ago, and part of a golf course until 2025.
Can visitUNESCO World Heritage Site (2023)
100 BCE to 400 CE

Fort Ancient

Oregonia · Warren County · Southwest Ohio
A hilltop ringed by walls, and not a fort at all.
Can visitUNESCO World Heritage Site (2023)
About 100 BCE to 500 CE

Mound City Group

Chillicothe · Ross County · Southern Ohio
A city of mounds along the Scioto, buried under an army camp and then put back.
Can visitHopewell Culture National Historical Park
About 200 BCE to 500 CE

Hopewell Mound Group

Chillicothe · Ross County · Southern Ohio
The place the Hopewell culture is named for, and the largest Hopewell mound anywhere.
Can visitHopewell Culture National Historical Park
About 100 BCE to 500 CE

Hopeton Earthworks

Chillicothe · Ross County · Southern Ohio
Geometry you have to imagine, now traced in mown grass below an overlook.
Can visitHopewell Culture National Historical Park
About 2,000 years ago

Seip Earthworks

Bainbridge · Ross County · Southern Ohio
Enormous circles beside Paint Creek and one of the tallest mounds in the Hopewell park.
Can visitHopewell Culture National Historical Park
About 2,000 years ago

High Bank Works

Chillicothe · Ross County · Southern Ohio
The one Hopewell park site you cannot walk, with astronomy built into its walls.
Hopewell Culture National Historical Park
About 2,000 years ago

Fort Hill State Memorial

Sinking Spring · Highland County · Southern Ohio
A great enclosing wall on a wooded summit, with a nature preserve's trails around it.
Can visitState Memorial and nature preserve
About 2,000 years ago

Marietta Earthworks

Marietta · Washington County · Southeast Ohio
The mounds under Marietta's streets, saved because the town's founders decided to.
Can visitNational Register of Historic Places
About 100 BCE to 500 CE

Portsmouth Earthworks

Portsmouth · Scioto County · Southern Ohio
A vast ceremonial center at the meeting of two rivers, mostly lost to the city that grew on top of it.
National Register of Historic Places
About 100 BCE to 500 CE

Spruce Hill Earthworks

Bourneville · Ross County · Southern Ohio
A meadow-topped hill ringed by a broken stone wall, and one of Ohio's biggest puzzles.
Can visitPreserved by the Arc of Appalachia
About 1,600 to 2,000 years ago

Highbanks Earthworks & Adena Mounds

Lewis Center · Delaware & Franklin Counties · Central Ohio
A wall of engineered clay on a river bluff, and two small Adena mounds in a busy metro park.
Can visitNational Register of Historic Places
Mounds over 2,000 years old; the earthwork about 700 to 1,300 years old

Indian Mound Reserve: Pollock Works & Williamson Mound

Cedarville · Greene County · Southwest Ohio
Two earthworks on either side of a creek canyon, one of them a hilltop enclosure with a burned wooden stockade.
Can visitNational Register of Historic Places
Pollock Works about 100 BCE to 500 CE; Williamson Mound about 500 BCE to 100 CE

Junction Earthworks

Bainbridge · Ross County · Southern Ohio
A field of low Hopewell walls and ditches that was nearly lost to farming and was bought back by a coalition.
Can visitPreserved by the Arc of Appalachia
About 200 BCE to 400 CE

Baum Earthworks & Village

Bourneville · Ross County · Southern Ohio
A Hopewell square below Spruce Hill, and a Fort Ancient village that the first mapmakers did not even mention.
National Register of Historic Places
Earthworks about 100 BCE to 500 CE; village about 1000 to 1650 CE

Glenford Fort

Glenford · Perry County · Central Ohio
A one-mile stone wall around a forested hilltop, now open by permit after two centuries in private hands.
Can visitNational Register of Historic Places
The mound dated to about 280 BCE; the walls are classic Hopewell

Stubbs Earthworks (lost)

Morrow · Warren County · Southwest Ohio
A once-massive Hopewell enclosure near Fort Ancient, now mostly gone.
National Register of Historic Places
About 100 BCE to 500 CE
Burial mounds

Conical mounds raised by the Adena over generations.

Miamisburg Mound

Miamisburg · Montgomery County · Southwest Ohio
A giant earthen cone on a river bluff with 116 steps to the top.
Can visitNational Register of Historic Places
About 800 BCE to 100 CE

Enon Adena Mound

Enon · Clark County · Southwest Ohio
A 40-foot mound in the middle of a village street loop, with a general, a prophet and an apple tree in its stories.
Can visitNational Register of Historic Places
Adena period; exact date uncertain

Adena Mound & Adena Mansion

Chillicothe · Ross County · Southern Ohio
A governor's estate gave its name to the whole Adena culture, and its view gave Ohio its seal.
Can visitType site of the Adena culture
Carbon dated to about 100 BCE to 40 CE (the Adena culture, about 800 BCE to 100 CE)

Wolf Plains Group

The Plains · Athens County · Southeast Ohio
A field of mounds on a Hocking Valley terrace, mostly lost to the town that grew up over them.
National Register of Historic Places
Radiocarbon dating suggests early Hopewell

Story Mound (Chillicothe)

Chillicothe · Ross County · Southern Ohio
A neat Adena mound in a Chillicothe neighborhood, opened in 1897 to reveal the outline of a wooden house.
Can visitNational Register of Historic Places
About 800 BCE to 100 CE

Story Mound (Cincinnati)

Sayler Park · Cincinnati · Southwest Ohio
A small burial mound in a Cincinnati neighborhood that has never been touched by a shovel.
National Register of Historic Places
Assumed Adena

Great Mound (Butler County)

Madison Township · Butler County · Southwest Ohio
A huge Adena mound on a ridge west of Middletown that may have been a signal tower.
National Register of Historic Places
About 800 BCE to 700 CE (Adena period)

Orators Mound (Glen Helen)

Yellow Springs · Greene County · Southwest Ohio
A small burial mound in a woodland glen that became a speaker's stand in the 1840 election.
Can visitNational Register of Historic Places
Prehistoric; culture debated

Luthor List Mound (Burning Mound)

Circleville · Pickaway County · South-Central Ohio
A ridge-top burial mound south of Circleville whose two nicknames both suggest fire.
National Register of Historic Places
Adena period (about 800 BCE to 100 CE)

Shrum Mound

West Scioto · Columbus · Central Ohio
A 2,000-year-old burial mound on a bluff in a Columbus neighborhood, with quarries and condos around it.
Can visitNational Register of Historic Places
About 800 BCE to 100 CE

Arledge Mounds

Circleville · Pickaway County · South-Central Ohio
A rare pair of conjoined mounds hidden in a Pickaway County field.
National Register of Historic Places
Unexcavated; attributed to the Adena

Horn Mound

Tarlton · Pickaway County · South-Central Ohio
A pristine mound at the end of a country road, guarded by nothing but a creek.
National Register of Historic Places
Adena period

Old Maid's Orchard Mound

Lithopolis · Fairfield County · Central Ohio
An 8-foot burial mound tucked into an old orchard, with a name nobody has explained.
Can visitNational Register of Historic Places
Adena period

Wamsley Village Burial Mounds

Wamsley Village · Adams County · Southern Ohio
Burial mounds in the same county as the Serpent Mound, excavated and left in place.
National Register of Historic Places
Adena period

Kinzer Mound

South Salem · Ross County · Southern Ohio
A small Adena mound outside South Salem whose exact location is protected.
National Register of Historic Places
Adena period

George Deffenbaugh Mound

Laurelville · Hocking County · Southeast Ohio
A small Adena mound on a ridge in Tar Hollow country, with a much younger stone mound nearby.
National Register of Historic Places
Adena period

David Stitt Mound

Chillicothe · Ross County · Southern Ohio
A sizable Adena mound near Chillicothe, listed for what may still lie inside it.
National Register of Historic Places
Adena period

Reeves Mound

Alfred · Meigs County · Southeast Ohio
A small, low mound in a Meigs County field where Adena arrowheads keep turning up.
National Register of Historic Places
About 1000 BCE to 400 CE, by the points found

Odd Fellows' Cemetery Mound

Newtown · Hamilton County · Southwest Ohio
A big Adena mound saved because it happened to be in a cemetery.
Can visitNational Register of Historic Places
Adena period

Carl Potter Mound

Mechanicsburg · Champaign County · West-Central Ohio
A worn-down burial mound in a Champaign County pasture.
National Register of Historic Places
Prehistoric

Dayton Power and Light Company Mound

Wrightsville · Adams County · Southern Ohio
A large Adena mound preserved on the grounds of a power plant.
National Register of Historic Places
Adena period

Conrad Mound Archeological Site

Cleves · Hamilton County · Southwest Ohio
A mound site near the Ohio River in far southwest Ohio, known mostly from its listing.
Listed among Adena sites
Adena period
Related places

Places that tie into the mound builders' story.

Flint Ridge Ancient Quarries

Glenford · Licking County · Central Ohio
The quarry that supplied flint to peoples across eastern North America, and the goal of the Black Hand's path.
Can visitNational Register of Historic Places
Quarried for more than 12,000 years