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.
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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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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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Waterfalls34 falls from the Cuyahoga Valley to the Hocking Hills, with trail notes and a map.
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117 parks in 7 regions

Baum Earthworks & Village

Bourneville · Ross County · Southern Ohio
The Hopewell works, and the later village nobody noticed
National Register of Historic Places

Visiting information you can trust

Check before driving — this site is seasonal, approximate, privately run, or otherwise uncertain. Confirm hours and access with the official source above.
Content last reviewed
September 2026 — this is when Field Notes Ohio's content was last checked, not a live status.
Location confidence
Approximate — boundary or exact point not confirmed
Approximate location

Prices, hours, closures, campsite availability and trail conditions shown elsewhere on this page are not live — always confirm with the official source before you go.

A Hopewell square below Spruce Hill, and a Fort Ancient village that the first mapmakers did not even mention.

Earthworks
A Hopewell ceremonial center known to Squier and Davis as Clark's Work, described in 1848 as one of the largest and most interesting in the Scioto valley
Village
A Fort Ancient village of more than ten acres, with more than 49 houses, 127 burials and 234 storage pits
Center mound
A flat-topped pyramid-shaped mound in the middle of the village, 120 feet wide and 15 feet high
Excavated
1897 to 1903 by Warren K. Moorehead and William C. Mills
Setting
On a gravel terrace of Paint Creek, just below Spruce Hill

The story

Below Spruce Hill, on the south side of Paint Creek near Bourneville, lie the Baum Earthworks, a Hopewell ceremonial center that Squier and Davis called Clark's Work and described in 1848 as one of the largest and most interesting in the Scioto valley. LiDAR images still show faint traces of the four small gateway mounds inside the earthwork's square.

The Baum Village site is a much later chapter. A large village of the Fort Ancient culture, occupied between about 1000 and 1650 CE, spread across more than ten acres nearby, with more than 49 houses, 127 burials and 234 storage pits. At its center was a flat-topped, pyramid-shaped mound 120 feet wide and 15 feet high. Moorehead and Mills excavated it between 1897 and 1903.

Related sites

The Village the Mapmakers Missed

When Squier and Davis surveyed the Paint Creek valley in 1846, they drew the geometry of the Baum Earthworks with care: a square, a circle, small gateway mounds. What they never mentioned was the village. Just beside the great Hopewell works lay one of the largest villages in the valley, lived in by later people, the Fort Ancient culture, long after the Hopewell had gone.

William Mills, digging there in 1899, pointed out the omission: the two earlier surveyors did not mention that a village was present.

Behind the legend

The distinction matters. The earthworks are Hopewell, built about 2,000 years ago, and the village is Fort Ancient, from around 1,000 years ago, so the two are separated by many centuries. The village's flat-topped mound, its burials and its storage pits are documented in the Ohio History Journal and by the Ohio History Connection. The National Register lists the Howard Baum site.

It is a reminder that the same valley was used by many different peoples over thousands of years.

If you go

Read Mills's report and the Ohio History Central entry for the village, and then go to Spruce Hill and Seip to see the valley from above and beside.

Visiting

Status
Access unclear
Managed by
Check with the Ohio History Connection
Hours
Not a developed visitor site; confirm access before you go.
Please note
Respect private property.

Directions use an approximate map pin. Check the official site for the entrance.

Directions

Parks nearby

Pike Lake State Park
About 8 miles · Camping and cabins on a small lake.
Open
Paint Creek State Park
About 12 miles · A big lake park in the same valley.
Open

Details last checked 2026-09-22. Confirm hours and prices before you go.