Field NotesOhio

Grave Creek Mound (Moundsville, W.Va.)

Moundsville · Marshall County, West Virginia · Just over the line

The biggest Adena mound anywhere, just over the river

National Historic LandmarkNational Register of Historic PlacesFree museum

Directions →Official source →

A 62-foot Adena burial mound in the middle of Moundsville, beside a free museum, about 15 minutes over the river from eastern Ohio.

Size: About 62 feet high and 240 feet across; 69 feet high on a 292-foot base in 1838
Earth moved: More than 57,000 tons
Ditch: Once ringed by a ditch about 40 feet wide and 5 feet deep
Built: In stages about 250 to 150 BCE, with burials at different levels
Museum: The Delf Norona Museum, beside the mound, opened in 1978
Designations: National Historic Landmark (1964), National Register (1966)

The story

Grave Creek Mound is the largest Adena mound anywhere, a cone of earth about 62 feet high and 240 feet across in the center of Moundsville, West Virginia, just across the Ohio River from Belmont and Monroe counties. Adena people built it in stages between about 250 and 150 BCE, moving more than 57,000 tons of earth, burying their dead at different levels and ringing it with a ditch about 40 feet wide.

In 1838 local men tunneled into it, found two log burial chambers with shell beads and copper bracelets, and ran a paid museum inside the mound until 1847, destroying much of what later archaeologists could have learned. An inscribed stone from that dig, the Grave Creek Stone, is now judged a hoax. The Wheeling chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution helped save the mound from demolition, the state bought it in 1909, and professional excavation came only in the 1970s. The Delf Norona Museum opened beside it in 1978.

Related sites

Visiting information you can trust

Content last reviewed: November 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 Grave Creek Stone

Deep in the mound, the 1838 diggers said, they found a small stone carved with strange letters. For a century and a half people argued over what ancient people could have written it.

The mound itself needed no such help to be remarkable.

Behind the legend

The 1838 tunnels, the log tombs and the museum inside the mound are documented by the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture & History. Modern scholars judge the Grave Creek Stone a hoax. It is listed here because it is the biggest Adena mound and only a short drive from Ohio, as the Mothman Museum is listed among the oddities.

If you go

Cross the river from Ohio, see the mound and the free museum between Tuesday and Saturday, and look across the street at the old state penitentiary.

Visiting

Status

Open Tuesday to Saturday

Managed by

West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture & History

Hours

Tuesday to Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Closed Sunday and Monday.

Admission

Free

Phone

Please note

Treat it as a sacred site. Ask at the museum before climbing.

Address

801 Jefferson Avenue, Moundsville, WV 26041

Official information →Directions

Parks nearby

Barkcamp State Park

About 18 miles · A lake and camping park on the Ohio side of the river.

Fernwood State Forest

About 29 miles · A reclaimed strip-mine forest with a free campground.

Details last checked 2026-11-05. Confirm hours and prices before you go.

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