After a long battle, the Octagon Mound opens to the public
More than 800 people celebrate New Year’s Day and a new era
The Ohio History Connection hosts an open house on the first day they reclaim possession of the property
Some arrived walking with canes. Others were so young that they came in strollers. Most were bundled up against falling temperatures and a brisk wind spitting snowflakes.
Some wept openly, and not because it was so cold.
They were among the hundreds of people who came to Newark, Ohio, on the first day of January in the year 2025 – from nearby neighborhoods and from as far away as Tennessee and Washington, D.C.
For the first time in more than a century, the public had full access to the Octagon Mound – a sacred earthwork where ancestors of Native Americans gathered more than 2,000 years ago.
A place built by those ancient people without modern technology and by hand – one basket full of dirt after another – with such precision that its geometric design aligns perfectly with the moon’s various positions in the sky during an 18.6-year cycle.
A structure so enormous that it could hold four Roman Coliseums or the Great Pyramid of Giza within its walls.
A site so important in human history that it and seven other Ohio earthworks built by Native Americans are now in rare company on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization list of World Heritage Sites.
So it was fitting that on Jan. 1, 2025 – the day that the Ohio History Connection regained full control of the 134-acre site – that this ancient gathering place drew more than 800 people to celebrate its history and that it now will be open to the public daily.
“It’s epic,” said Brad Lepper, Senior Archaeologist at the Ohio History Connection, who was among those who worked for decades to achieve the UNESCO designation. “The Octagon is one of eight components of the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, and I think it’s the most significant” because of its lunar alignment.
Aerial view of the Octagon Earthworks. Photo by Timothy E. Black.
Aerial view of the Octagon Earthworks. Photo by Timothy E. Black.
People from Caleb Atwater in 1820 on down to the 1980's said these Earthworks should become a national park. The only thing we did differently was we were able to keep at it for 25 years—Native Americans, archeologists, historians, academics, community people. Ultimately it just became a force that could not be resisted.
-Jeff Gill, storyteller, volunteer guide
My plans for today are just to share as much as I can with the public—as much of the public as is going to show up today, with this weather, and given this is a holiday—and just walk the grounds like I've never been able to do before.
-Brad Lepper, Senior Archaeologist at the Ohio History Connection
The site had been leased to the Moundbuilders Country Club since 1910, which used the site at 125 N. 33rd St. in Newark as a golf course and prohibited public access except on a few days each year. After a lengthy court battle, the Ohio History Connection was able to end the lease and regain control of the site, which was pivotal in earning the UNESCO designation.
Jennifer Aultman, Chief Historic Sites Officer for the Ohio History Connection, said that the staff has just begun the process of assessing what work needs to be done. On that day, however, she was focused on the magnitude of the moment.
“I was teary eyed when I turned the corner this morning,” she said.
Chief Glenna Wallace was instrumental in her advocacy for the Earthworks. This sign now sits by the entrance to the site.
Chief Glenna Wallace was instrumental in her advocacy for the Earthworks. This sign now sits by the entrance to the site.
She was taken by the idea of inviting the public into this space, especially children. She grew up 35 minutes away from the mound and did not learn about the Newark Earthworks until she went to college in Virginia.
“I suppose it's like if I had a kid who was growing up next to Stonehenge, or next to the pyramids, I would want them to know that not everybody grows up next to something like this,” Aultman said. “I would want them to help to care for it and preserve it and honor it. I want them to know that they're in the middle of something extraordinary.”
If I had a kid who was going to grow up next to Stonehenge or the pyramids, I would want them to know that not everybody grows up next to something like this. I would want them to help to care for it and preserve it and honor it. That's why I would want them to know that they're in the middle of something extraordinary.
-Jennifer Aultman, Chief Historic Sites Officer for the Ohio History Connection
A bright spot on a gray day
At 9:30 a.m. on Jan. 1, the parking lot outside of what was, until midnight, an exclusive country club, was filling with cars driven mostly by people who previously had little to no access to the place.
Lepper and Jeff Gill, a storyteller and volunteer guide at this site and the nearby Great Circle Earthworks, were sticking signs into the ground to direct guests to the first tour of the day at 11 a.m. With snow gusting about, Lepper said he was “walking on sunshine” despite the New Year’s Day gray.
“I hoped it would happen,” Lepper said. “I wanted to do everything I could to make it happen. But no, I wasn't sure this was ever going to happen.”
Gill honored those people, some of whom could not be there that day, who helped make this transition possible.
“Bruce Lombardo, Mark and Carol Welsh, Barbara Crandell – you know, people who have been a part of this story and a part of building blocks of getting to this place, who've walked on ahead. And so, yeah, we're thinking about a lot of that.”
| Read more: Newark Earthworks celebrates one year as a World Heritage site while planning for the future
Not everyone who was fighting to help us end the lease [to the country club] is still with us. There was a group called Friends of the Mounds, and then the Newark Earthworks Center. And then I think about all of the tribal partners who aren't able to be here today, but have been on this path for a long time. It's a great day. A good way to start the New Year. I hope it's a good omen for the rest of the year.
-Megan Wood, Ohio History Connection Executive Director and CEO Megan Wood
Gill and Lepper are excited to experience the space in ways that were never possible in the past.
Gill, for example, wants to walk up to the site from Raccoon Creek one day soon, as opposed to arriving from the parking lot. That’s not how the space would have been experienced by the people who built it, he said.
“However, you know, this site was accessed from the great Hopewell Road from (earthworks at) Chillicothe, or however that might have been,” Gill said. “We do know they didn't drive in and park in a parking lot and walk up to signage.”
He is eager to see the space in its natural state.
Brad Lepper and Jeff Gill have worked together for decades to open the Earthworks to the general public on a regular basis. Photo by Doug Swift.
Brad Lepper and Jeff Gill have worked together for decades to open the Earthworks to the general public on a regular basis. Photo by Doug Swift.
“I just saw a huge, red-shouldered hawk carrying away a squirrel just now,” said Gill, of Granville. “Wildlife has been and is a part of [this space]. We've seen all kinds of owls and hawks and certainly buzzards. And a couple of open houses ago, I did get here early so I could just walk out and experience the site … and I hear this call, and I look up, and there's two bald eagles, kind of doing a mating dance overhead. I just watched them for five minutes until they dashed back down toward the creek. That’s what we can now experience that you couldn't before.”
Life-changing experiences
Former Ohio Gov. Bob Taft and First Lady Hope Taft were among those who joined the first tour on Jan. 1.
Mrs. Taft said she first visited the site during a moon rise in 2005.
“It changed my life,” she said, stopping abruptly to take in the scene of children playing beneath swaying pine boughs and in the former sand traps.
“It helped me realize that they were geniuses,” she said about the Native Americans who built the mounds.
“Two thousand years from now, no one will remember what we did, but they will remember what these people did,” Taft said, nodding toward the mounds.
| Read more: “There’s peace here” — The Newark Earthworks is designated a World Heritage Site
To help bring attention to the ancient people and their earthworks, the Tafts, who live near the Fort Ancient earthworks, walked the 160 miles from that site to the Newark Earthworks to experience Ohio as the Native American ancestors did.
“To do that, you have to get off of I-70 and 71 and travel the back roads,” she said, and that experience was so moving that she collaborated with Buck Niehoff, a retired lawyer and author, on a book called “Walking Ancient Ohio.”
All Ohioans, she said, have a duty to visit the mounds, learn about them and share their history accurately.
There's nothing we have done in our lifetimes that people 2,000 years from now will remember. But here are some actual structures, actual journalism, so to speak, of their lifetimes and what they did 2,000 years ago. That, to me, is amazing. It's really a wonderful thought that we can now honor that culture, that knowledge, that genius.
Hope Taft, former Ohio First Lady
A new era for ancient mounds
When she spoke to a crowd in the former country club ballroom – now the visitor’s center for the Octagon Mound – Ohio History Connection Executive Director and CEO Megan Wood stood quietly for a moment to take in the large number of people in the room.
“Have you ever thrown a party and didn’t know how many people would show up?” she said to chuckles from those in a room packed with people, some of whom had a big hand during many years to help make this day happen.
She thanked donors and public officeholders, and neighbors of the Octagon Mound. Wood said the site now belongs to all people, and it will be open from dawn to dusk with 24-hour security, a visitor’s center and guided tours from Wednesday through Sunday.
One goal for the site will be to make it look as much as possible like it did 2,000 years ago, she said. That means the Ohio History Connection will mow the site, remove greens and sand traps, and it will not replace trees as they die.
All of this, she said, will be done in consultation with tribal nations, neighbors and partners.
She paid homage to the Native Americans, in particular, who were involved in the campaign for World Heritage Site designation.
Chief Glenna J. Wallace, of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, was pivotal among them. She could not be in Newark on Jan. 1, but her words greeted all who came for the open house from a sign near the mound:
“These places embody precision and beauty, containing mathematical complexities in their design and astronomical alignments to the sky,” she says on the sign. “My Shawnee ancestors protected and preserved them so we can appreciate them today. The first day I visited Newark, I made a commitment to learn all I could about all of the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, to teach others about them, and to preserve them.”
Bob Cross drove from Waynesville, Ohio to attend today's event.
Bob Cross drove from Waynesville, Ohio to attend today's event.
Bob Cross is an Alaska Native, Inupiat, and said he only recently learned about the Newark Earthworks. He drove over from Waynesville this morning and said he was happy to see the transition and the movement to educate people about the significance of Ohio’s earthworks.
I had to be here today. Over the years, to come out, and see the disrespect, it was disheartening. I heard the argument [of folks who supported the country club]. They couldn't relate. I didn't expect them to relate. But then eventually I began to see people appreciate the knowledge, the indigenous knowledge that exists, and to give credence to that indigenous knowledge, and how important it is to understand.
-Guy Jones, Born and raised on the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota
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