The Lost Mounds of St. Louis
A Vanished Landscape
St. Louis’ downtown area didn’t always look the way it does now. Today, the city rises in a slow incline from the riverfront, with no obvious hills or large mounds. But at one time, the entire city was speckled with large earthen hills—remains of Native American tribes who once lived here.
A total of 27 mounds were gradually removed from the landscape to make way for a growing city.
Mapping the Mounds
The first map of St. Louis and its surroundings, completed in 1767 by engineer Guy de Fosse, noted a series of hills scattered across what is now the city.
At Ashby and Biddle Streets, one mound was referred to as Fairy Garden because it had three large tiers.
Sixteen mounds were located in what is now Forest Park.
Others stood at Jefferson and Olive, 3rd and O’Fallon, and on the grounds of Christian Brothers College in North City (now Sherman Park).
The largest mound, called Grande de Terre or Earthen Barn by early French colonists, was located at Broadway and Howard. It was the most prominent geographic feature in St. Louis. Travelers on the Mississippi River knew they had reached the city when they saw it—not the Arch, but Big Mound.
Mound City
The mounds were a major tourist attraction, viewed with the same historical awe as the Great Pyramids of Giza. Visitors from across the United States and Europe came to St. Louis to see them.
They were also part of the city’s daily life and identity:
Directions were often given using the mounds as landmarks.
Businesses adopted “Mound” into their names, such as Mound Brewery and Mound Methodist Church.
The city earned the nickname Mound City.
The Army Survey
In 1819, a group of army engineers stopped in St. Louis en route to the Upper Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. While their steamboat was being repaired, Major H. S. Long and his crew measured all the mounds in the city.
They counted 27 in total, from Biddle Street north and east of Broadway. All were oblong or square in shape but varied in size.
In their report to the federal government, they described Big Mound as:
319 feet long
158 feet wide
34 feet high
Flat-topped and facing north-south
With a slant on the eastern side, suggesting it was once larger and terraced
At the summit, they found several graves, but the ones opened contained only animal remains.
Discoveries and Speculation
Big Mound remained mostly untouched until about 1841, when a coffin emerged at soil level. Inside were the remains of an Osage man wrapped in a European blanket, wearing bracelets, with braided hair. Researchers believed he had died of smallpox in the 1820s and was buried with four others at the request of the Osage tribe.
In 1844, Fried and Vanaventer Lumber Company built a two-story reception hall atop the mound, called Mound Pavilion, offering panoramic city views. It burned down in 1848. Artifacts and human remains found during its construction were discarded.
Some people recognized the mounds as ancient burial sites, like those in Cahokia, Illinois. Others—such as a professor at the St. Louis Academy of Science—claimed they were merely silt deposits from the river.
Decline and Destruction
By 1855, streets cut through the north and south ends of Big Mound. Sections were removed to widen streets and add sidewalks. The mounds began to be seen as obstacles to urban growth.
In 1866, Archbishop Peter Kendrick sold much of Big Mound to New York investors for $18,000; the remainder was sold to a local blacksmith for $12,000.
In 1868, complete destruction began. Earth, bones, and artifacts were carted away as fill for the Northern Missouri Railroad.
Artifacts included copper plates engraved with images of a god, beads, shells, and earrings. Beneath the surface lay a tier of human remains—heads facing east, surrounded by beads and shells.
Lost Treasures
The copper plates were once housed at Washington University but, according to legend, were later found in a janitor’s closet and thrown away. Other artifacts were stored at the St. Louis Academy of Science, but were destroyed in a fire in 1869. If anything survives, no one knows.
Big Mound’s destruction marked the end of the mounds in the downtown area.
Commemoration
In 1929, the Colonial Dames of America commissioned a plaque to commemorate the mounds. Placed on a boulder at Mound Street and Broadway, it read:
“This boulder stands near the site of the Great Indian Mound, leveled about 1870, which gave to the city of St. Louis the name Mound City.”
The plaque was removed during construction of the Stan Musial Bridge. A new plaque and historical marker now stand on the site, part of the planned Mounds Heritage Trail—a 15-mile route from Cahokia, Illinois, to Sugarloaf Mound in South City, highlighting Native American, African American, and Hispanic heritage.
The Builders
Today, archaeologists believe the mounds were built by people of the Mississippian culture, the same society responsible for Cahokia’s mounds. Their civilization thrived between 1100 and 1450 AD.
As St. Louis expanded, the mounds were removed or built over—one was even converted into a water reservoir. The destruction disturbed hundreds of graves and ruined countless artifacts. At the time, these treasures were not valued as they would be today. The needs of the present outweighed the preservation of the past.
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Until next time, I’ll see you in the Lou.