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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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

Stubbs Earthworks (lost)

Morrow · Warren County · Southwest Ohio
A Hopewell enclosure lost to gravel pits and a high school
National Register of Historic PlacesLargely destroyed

Visiting information you can trust

Check before driving — this site is seasonal, approximate, privately run, or otherwise uncertain. Confirm hours and access with the official source above.
Content last reviewed
September 2026 — this is when Field Notes Ohio's content was last checked, not a live status.
Location confidence
Approximate — boundary or exact point not confirmed
Use the listed address for directions; treat the map pin as a general area.

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 once-massive Hopewell enclosure near Fort Ancient, now mostly gone.

Also called
Bigfoot Earthworks and the Warren County Serpent Mound
Setting
At the confluence of the Little Miami River and Bigfoot Run, near Morrow
Fate
Largely destroyed by gravel quarrying and the construction of a public school
Excavated
Frank Cowan's team documented 21 Hopewell wooden structures on the school property, with strong evidence the earthworks extended there
The cluster
A survey documented 28 Hopewell sites along the river presumed to belong to the Stubbs complex
Listed
National Register of Historic Places, 1978

The story

The Stubbs Earthworks were a massive Hopewell enclosure, built between about 100 BCE and 500 CE, on the Little Miami River near Morrow in Warren County, only a few miles from Fort Ancient. They are also known as the Bigfoot Earthworks, after the run beside them, and, in some accounts, as the Warren County Serpent Mound. Later gravel quarries and the construction of a public school destroyed most of the site.

Before that was complete, archaeologists got a look. Surveys in the late 1970s and 1980s recorded 28 Hopewell sites along the river presumed to belong to the builders and users of Stubbs, and a dig on the school property documented 21 Hopewell wooden structures, along with strong evidence that the earthworks had once extended onto it.

Related sites

The Earthwork Under the High School

Not every mound is lucky. The Stubbs Earthworks stood beside the Little Miami River, close to Fort Ancient, and they were once a massive geometric enclosure. Then the gravel pits came, and after them a public school, built on part of the site.

When archaeologists were finally able to dig before the high school went up, they found the outlines of twenty-one Hopewell wooden buildings, the proof of how much had stood there.

Behind the legend

The loss is documented: quarrying and school construction destroyed most of the earthwork, and the digs on the school property are recorded by the Ohio Archaeological Council. It survives mainly as a National Register listing, old maps by Whittlesey in 1851 and reconstruction art. The odd nickname, the Warren County Serpent Mound, appears in the Wikipedia article, and the sources available do not say why.

It is a reminder that for every Serpent Mound, there was a Stubbs.

If you go

You cannot visit Stubbs, but you can visit nearby Fort Ancient, a few miles away, for the best-preserved Hopewell earthwork of the region.

Visiting

Status
Not visitable
Managed by
Not applicable
Hours
The earthworks are largely gone; there is no public site to visit.

Parks nearby

Cowan Lake State Park
About 14 miles · A quiet sailing lake with lotus beds.
Open
Caesar Creek State Park
About 16 miles · A big lake park with a pioneer village and fossil hunting.
Open

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