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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117 parks in 7 regions

Mound City Group

Chillicothe · Ross County · Southern Ohio

The only fully restored Hopewell earthwork

Hopewell Culture National Historical ParkUNESCO World Heritage Site (2023)National Historic Landmark

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.

A city of mounds along the Scioto, buried under an army camp and then put back.

Mounds: At least 23 mounds inside a low earthen wall, ringed by eight borrow pits
Each mound: Covers a burned charnel house; the Hopewell cremated their dead
Camp Sherman: Built over the site in 1917, destroying many mounds
Restored: 1920 to 1921; the mounds were rebuilt
National monument: 1923; became a national historical park in 1992
Visitor center: 16062 State Route 104, with a museum of Hopewell artifacts

The story

Squier and Davis named the site Mound City for its unusual concentration of mounds, at least 23, enclosed by a low earthen wall. Each mound covers a charnel house: the Hopewell burned their dead and the building that held them and raised a mound over the ashes, placing copper figures, mica, shells and pipes inside. Mound 7, the largest, is sometimes called Death Mask Mound.

In 1917, during World War I, the site was covered by part of Camp Sherman, an army training camp, and many mounds were destroyed. The Ohio Historical and Archaeological Society excavated and restored the mounds in 1920 and 1921, and in 1923 President Harding made it Mound City Group National Monument. In 1992 it became Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, and in 2023 it was inscribed by UNESCO. It is the only Hopewell earthwork that has been fully restored.

Related sites

The Army Camp Built on the Mounds

In 1917 the army needed a place to train soldiers, and the flat, fertile Scioto Valley near Chillicothe was chosen for Camp Sherman. Barracks and drill fields covered Mound City, and many of the mounds were flattened. When the war ended and the camp came down, the mounds were partly rebuilt.

The same camp fired artillery in the hills nearby, on what is now Scioto Trail State Forest, where you can camp today on a former impact zone.

Behind the legend

This is documented in the National Park Service's own history: Camp Sherman covered the site and many mounds were destroyed, then the Ohio Historical and Archaeological Society excavated and restored it in 1920 and 1921. That restoration is why the visitor sees 23 low grassy mounds today rather than an empty field. Estimates of the count differ, since one source says there were 24 mounds and 22 remain.

The Hopewell people who built it lived here between about 200 BCE and 500 CE.

If you go

Walk the mounds trail and the perimeter trail, and see the museum. Then look for the Scioto Trail State Forest story about the artillery range.