Not far off the Ohio Scenic Byway in Metropolis, Ill., is a sight that predated modern man by several centuries.

A lookout extends over an ordinary farmer’s field, but what is in the distance is anything but ordinary. The viewer can see clearly above the vista an array of Indian mounds that seemingly rise right out of the earth.

Jim Modglin, a volunteer and local expert, said, “Kincaid Mounds would have lasted from around 600 A.D. until 1200 to 1300 A.D. The people that built these mounds left here before Columbus arrived.”

Jim has been interested in the Mounds since he was a child. He has a wonderful collection of artifacts, many handed down from his father, and others he has found on private land over the years.
Now retired, Jim spends many hours helping share the word about this amazing site that is classified the fourth most important Mississippian locale in the country. Looking at the stone tools that these early people used to farm, it is easy to see that the horse and plow were a huge step up in technology.

Duly designated as a historical site by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, the area consists of 105 acres. Although a historic site, it is the Kincaid Mounds Support Organization, a local nonprofit corporation, which manages the site under contract with the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.

For those who want to visit, the attitude is about the same as when a parent takes a child into a china shop: “Look, but don’t touch.” The public is not able to walk over the mounds or the fields, and public access is limited to an observation/interpretation platform adjacent to Kincaid Mounds Road.

However, a visitor can certainly get a good idea of the magnitude of the site. Details about how to find this historic site located in Massac County can be found online at www.kincaidmounds.com
This platform is a relatively new addition to the site. Even such a minor addition to the area requires that anytime dirt is moved, a dig be conducted. “Southern Illinois University did the dig to make sure we wouldn’t cover anything up,” Jim said.

According to the website, the Mississippians who inhabited the land were possibly the earliest farmers: “Between 1,000 and 700 years ago, the first people to practice large scale agriculture in the southern Illinois area established Kincaid Mounds as the seat of their Chiefdom. These Native Americans were of the Mississippian culture and occupied Kincaid from approximately 1050 AD to 1400 AD. They were ruled by a chief who inherited his position and probably claimed power from the sun.

“Corn or maize farmers in the lowlands along the Ohio River from Hamletsburg upstream to Brookport downstream supported the leaders with grain and constructed the mounds we see today. They also constructed the buildings and the protective wall or palisade that encircled the principal mounds, but which we now know only from the archaeological record.”

The 30-foot-high mounds are raised platforms from which the chief and other elite leaders lived or ruled. The homes they built, historians speculate, were thatch-roofed homes, and on the largest mound is where they think the ceremonial buildings and temples were constructed. “The mounds were built in stages over a 350-year period by stacking basket loads of selected soil and clay material one on top of another. They stand today much as they appeared 700 years ago,” the website adds.

Jim explained that this area is not a new find. From 1934-44 the University of Chicago excavated here and developed many of the methods that became the basis for much of today’s archaeological practice.

In 1876, the Kincaid family farmed the ground and lived on top of one of the mounds – thus the name, Kincaid Mounds. “This was in private hands until the 1970s. First it was the Kincaids, then they sold it to the Douglas family. Today the farmland is leased,” Jim added.

Take time if heading along the Ohio Scenic Byway to stop and read the informational panels and view the mounds that were built with little more than muscle and sheer determination. Learn a bit about the earliest farmers and the tools they used.

Readers with questions or comments for Cindy Ladage may write to her in care of this publication.