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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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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Lake Erie Beaches20 public beaches from Conneaut to Toledo and the islands, 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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117 parks in 7 regions

Indian Mound Reserve: Pollock Works & Williamson Mound

Cedarville · Greene County · Southwest Ohio
A hilltop whose stockade the builders burned
National Register of Historic PlacesGreene County Parks & Trails

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.
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Official page
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Located from the site's street address
Check current conditions
Official conditions or closures
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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.

Two earthworks on either side of a creek canyon, one of them a hilltop enclosure with a burned wooden stockade.

Pollock Works
Earthen walls and gateways closing off the western end of a limestone plateau, once nearly ringed by Massies Creek
Built
In a five-stage process, according to excavations by Wright State University archaeologists
Williamson Mound
A large conical Adena mound at the peak of a hill across the creek
Setting
Both stand on opposite sides of Massies Creek, which flows through a canyon up to 40 feet deep
Park
Indian Mound Reserve, 169 acres, managed by Greene County Parks & Trails
Also here
Cedar Cliff Falls, a stone dam built in 1887 for the Harbison Flour Mill, and a historic log cabin

The story

Indian Mound Reserve, a county park near Cedarville, takes its name from two earthworks on opposite sides of Massies Creek. The Pollock Works, on the south side, is a Hopewell hilltop enclosure: earthen walls and gateways close off the western end of a limestone plateau that was nearly surrounded by the creek, which once ran through a channel around it. Across the creek, at the top of a hill, stands the Williamson Mound, a large conical burial mound built by the Adena.

Archaeologists from Wright State University showed that the Hopewell built the Pollock Works in five stages. Robert Riordan's excavations revealed a hilltop gated with stone and earth, briefly protected by a high wooden stockade that its builders then burned in a great crescent of fire. Like other Hopewell hilltop sites, it looks like a hill fort but seems more important as a religious site.

Related sites

The Stockade the Builders Burned

The archaeologists who dug the Pollock Works uncovered a story with a strange ending. At first the Hopewell built a wall of earth and stone with gateways. Then they added a tall wooden stockade, which looks like a defense. And then, according to the excavations, they burned it themselves, in a great crescent of fire.

A second story belongs to the creek. Settlers told that Nathaniel Massie, the surveyor the creek is named for, once battled a Shawnee band under Tecumseh here and drove them over the stream at the canyon. Not far away, near Old Town Reserve, a marker commemorates the Shawnee chief's reputed birthplace.

Behind the legend

The stockade is documented by the Wright State excavations and by the Ancient Ohio Trail's account of Riordan's work. It suggests that the hilltop was more ceremonial than military, and that burning the stockade was a deliberate act. The Massie and Tecumseh battle is only 'reputed,' as one source puts it, and the birthplace marker is a commemoration, not proof.

The park's later history is easier to confirm: Cedar Cliff Falls, the curved stone dam on Massies Creek, was built in 1887 for the Harbison Flour Mill, replacing an older dam destroyed in a flood.

If you go

Walk the Pollock Works loop trail and look for the gateways in the woods, then cross the creek to the Williamson Mound. Cedar Cliff Falls is a good lookout.

Visiting

Status
County park
Managed by
Greene County Parks & Trails
Hours
Public park with marked trails; check Greene County Parks & Trails for hours.
Admission
Check Greene County Parks & Trails
Please note
Stay on the trails and off the earthworks. The gateways are densely overgrown.
Address
2750 U.S. Route 42, Cedarville, OH 45314
Official information →Directions

Parks nearby

John Bryan State Park
About 9 miles · Clifton Gorge, the Little Miami and the Blue Hole legend.
Open
Buck Creek State Park
About 17 miles · A big lake park on Springfield's edge.
Open

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