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Hopewell Mound Group

Chillicothe · Ross County · Southern Ohio

The site that gave the culture its name

Hopewell Culture National Historical ParkUNESCO World Heritage Site (2023)Type site of the Hopewell culture

Visiting information you can trust

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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: Approximate — boundary or exact point not confirmed
Approximate location
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The place the Hopewell culture is named for, and the largest Hopewell mound anywhere.

Mound 25: The largest known Hopewell mound: more than 500 feet long and originally over 30 feet high, about 1.5 million basket loads of earth
Earthworks: About three miles of embankments and at least 40 mounds, with smaller interior enclosures
Named for: Mordecai Hopewell, whose land it stood on in the 1891 excavation
Recognition: One of the eight sites in the UNESCO Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks

The story

Hopewell Mound Group is the site of the 1891 excavation on the land of Mordecai Hopewell, whose name became the name for the whole culture. It is one of the largest and most complex Hopewell earthwork centers, with about three miles of earthen embankments, at least 40 mounds and two smaller interior earthworks. Mound 25, the largest known Hopewell mound, once towered more than 30 feet and stretched more than 500 feet, and building it took an estimated one and a half million basket loads of earth carried by hand over generations.

The Hopewell Mound Group is the namesake and type site of the culture.

Related sites

A Farmer's Name for a Whole Culture

The people who built these enormous earthworks left no name, so archaeologists gave them one: the name of the man whose farm they were digging on. Mordecai Hopewell owned the land where a major mound group stood, and when it was excavated in 1891, the culture took the landowner's name.

The name is a mistake of history, and it stuck. The people themselves are ancestors of many present-day tribes.

Behind the legend

The naming is documented, and the mound is real. Mound 25 was more than 500 feet long and required an estimated one and a half million baskets of earth, which points to a huge organized workforce over many years. Today the mounds have eroded, and some have been leveled, and interpretive trails lead visitors through what remains.

It is one of the eight components of the UNESCO Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks.

If you go

Walk the trail out to Mound 25 and imagine the 30-foot mound. Pair the visit with Mound City, and read the interpretive signs.