Chickamauga Mound historical marker from the casting foundry
Tennessee Ancient Sites Conservancy will unveil the new state historical marker for Chickamauga Mound Off Amnicola Highway this Saturday at noon.
The mound’s historical marker text was approved by the Tennessee Historical Commission, paid for by Tennessee Ancient Sites Conservancy (TASC), cast in bronze by Sewah Studios in Marietta, Oh., and installed by the Chattanooga Highway Marking office of the Tennessee Department of Transportation up on the little hill by the big signs on Thursday.
The public is invited to an unveiling ceremony this saturday at noon, with the current owners of the mound property, Kenny Wilhoit, with son Justin Wilhoit, of Atlantic Distributors Inc.
(ADI) 51 Lost Mound Dr. in Chattanooga.
The sign is located at the entrance of the Amnicola Trailhead of South Chickamauga Creek Greenway, 3716-3726 Amnicola Hwy. in Chattanooga.
Officials said, "Tennessee Ancient Site Conservancy's mission is to help preserve ancient historical sites around our state by working with land owners to create conservation easements on the property so that TASC can be a legal representative for the land's future preservation, and to place historical markers at the locations of ancient historical sites whose history is often skipped over.
"The creators of the burial mound predate any known indigenous history so we have no name for them besides the generica 'Woodland'. But we do know that the Muscogee (Creek) who named this area 'Chattanooga' (cvto - rock), and the Yuchi were here before Dragging Canoe (Cherokee) and his intertribal coalition moved here in 1776 to continue their resistance to euroamerican colonization.
"Chickamauga Mound is the oldest and the only visible remaining artifact of indigenous occupation left in Chattanooga. Members of the Chattanooga InterTribal Association (CITA) and the Chickamauga Mound care group have been working on Chickamauga Mound for the past 15 years, making sure that this ancient burial mound is not 'lost' any more."
Text of marker:
Chickamauga Mound
c. 350-900 CE
Standing 200’ to the west, Chickamauga Mound is an earthen structure that comprised the center of a Native American town between c. 350 – 900 CE. Native Americans often built mounds during this period as sacred places to bury their dead.
This town also contained households, gardens, public spaces, and additional mounds, most of which was destroyed in the early 1970s by construction of the Roxbury Southern Mills Textile plant.
Artifacts and historical records show that Native Americans lived at the mouth of South Chickamauga Creek from c. 8000 BCE until the Cherokee Removal of 1838.
Chickamauga Mound, Chattanooga, near the mouth of Chickamauga Creek