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

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117 parks in 7 regions

Miamisburg Mound

Miamisburg · Montgomery County · Southwest Ohio
Ohio's tallest conical burial mound
National Register of Historic PlacesOhio History Connection site

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.
Location confidence
Verified property location
Located from the site's street address

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 giant earthen cone on a river bluff with 116 steps to the top.

Height
65 feet (originally 68 or more before an 1869 excavation)
Circumference
About 800 to 877 feet
Volume
About 54,000 cubic yards of earth
Setting
A bluff about 100 feet above the Great Miami River
Steps
116 steps lead to an observation platform (some visitors count 144)
Owner
Owned by the Ohio History Connection; the city of Miamisburg maintains the park

The story

Miamisburg Mound is the largest conical burial mound in Ohio and one of the largest in the eastern United States. It stands 65 feet tall and about 800 feet around and contains about 54,000 cubic yards of earth, built by the Adena people between about 800 BCE and 100 CE on a bluff 100 feet above the Great Miami River. An 1869 excavation, a vertical shaft from the top to the base and a horizontal shaft across it, found a single skeleton 8 feet down and a log room that may have been a charnel house. The shaft is thought to have lowered the mound from about 68 feet.

The excavation also showed that the mound was built in stages, and a layer of overlapping flat stones 24 feet down suggests it may once have had a stone facing. Squier and Davis surveyed it, and its picture is the first figure in their 1848 book.

Related sites

The Mound That Opens the Book

When the Smithsonian published its first book, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, in 1848, the first picture in it was a tree-covered hill at Miamisburg. Squier and Davis, two men from Chillicothe, thought the mound was the finest example of its kind they had seen. Today you can climb it, on hand-laid stone steps to a platform with a view of the Great Miami valley.

Some visitors count 116 steps and some count 144, and it is a very steep climb either way.

Behind the legend

The step count is a local disagreement, with the shelter sign saying 116 and one visitor counting 144. What is documented is the mound: its size, the 1869 excavation and the fact that the Ohio History Connection owns it while the city runs the park. Since NAGPRA protects it, no further excavation is likely.

The Adena built conical mounds like this one as burial places over generations, and the cone may echo the round houses they lived in.

If you go

Climb the steps slowly, since the stones are hand-placed and uneven, and look out over the Great Miami valley from the platform.

Visiting

Status
Open
Managed by
Ohio History Connection; city of Miamisburg
Hours
The park is open to the public; check with the city for hours.
Admission
Free
Please note
Climb the steps; do not dig or disturb the mound.
Address
900 Mound Rd, Miamisburg, OH 45342
Directions

Parks nearby

Sycamore State Park
About 10 miles · Montgomery County's only state park, with meadow and prairie.
Open

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