Field NotesOhio

Enon Adena Mound

Enon · Clark County · Southwest Ohio

Ohio's second-largest conical mound

National Register of Historic PlacesSecond-largest conical mound in Ohio

Directions →Official source →

A 40-foot mound in the middle of a village street loop, with a general, a prophet and an apple tree in its stories.

Height: About 40 feet
Circumference: 574 feet, covering more than an acre
Also called: Knob Prairie Mound
Owner: The Village of Enon
Excavation: No professional excavation; an alleged 1870s or 1880s dig by local young people
Rank: Second only to Miamisburg Mound among Ohio's conical mounds

The story

The Enon Adena Mound rises about 40 feet in the middle of Mound Circle in the village of Enon. It is believed to have been built by the Adena culture and is the second-largest conical mound in Ohio, after the Miamisburg Mound about 35 miles southwest. It has never had a professional excavation, and little verified information about it has been published. The village owns it, and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In the late 1800s the mound was ringed by an Osage hedge and crowned with trees. In the early 1900s the ground around it was the center of a dirt racetrack, and in 1953 a developer deeded the surrounding land to the village.

Related sites

Visiting information you can trust

Content last reviewed: September 2026 — this is when Field Notes Ohio's content was last checked, not a live status.
Primary official source: Official page
Location confidence: Verified property location
Located from the site's street address
Check current conditions: Official conditions or closures
Reservations or tickets: Tickets or admission info

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.

The General's Lookout and the Apple Tree

Locals say General George Rogers Clark used the mound as a lookout in 1780, sending cavalrymen to the top to scan the country before he marched a thousand soldiers against the Shawnee village of Picawey, less than two miles north. A second story says that in the 1830s Joseph Smith and his followers, passing through on the march known as Zion's Camp, found partly buried human remains in the mound.

A third tale concerns local young people who dug into the mound in the 1870s or 1880s. They reported going down the center from the top and finding a room of stone shaped like a bake oven, with a crawl tunnel and a pile of dirt and stone that looked like an altar, holding small animal bones and charcoal.

Behind the legend

No one has verified any of it. The historical society says plainly that there is no reliable report of professional exploration, no reliable report of Adena artifacts recovered, and that youths with no archaeological training would be unlikely to have recognized burials. The dent on the northwest side may be a trace of that dig. The Clark story comes from local tradition, and the Joseph Smith story is believed within the Mormon community.

One detail is well documented: an apple tree once grew on top of the mound, and it inspired the Apple Butter Festival that the historical society started in 1979.

If you go

Drive to Mound Circle and look at the mound from the street, then walk around it and think about the stories. In autumn, ask about the Apple Butter Festival.

Visiting

Status

Public landmark

Managed by

Village of Enon

Hours

Stands in the middle of Mound Circle in a residential neighborhood, off Indian Drive; view it from the street.

Admission

Free

Please note

Please stay off the mound and respect the neighborhood.

Address

401 Mound Circle, Enon, OH 45323

Official information →Directions

Parks nearby

Buck Creek State Park

About 12 miles · A big lake park on Springfield's edge with a paved trail into town.

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

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