Leslie and David's Wanderings: 16 March 2020 Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park

Going to the Ocmulgee National Monument was the purpose of this detour from the coast to continue on our quest to see all the National Parks and National Monuments. Back when we planned this trip, it was a National Monument, but late last year, congress passed a bill changing it to a National Historical Park and adding 2000 acres (which has yet to be bought) to the park.

The park is about 840 acres and covers what was know as the “Old Ocmulgee grounds”. There are six mounds in the park that were built by the Mississippian Indians between 900 and 1600. But they have uncovered artifacts in the park dating back to the early Paleo-Indians around 15,000 years ago. They don’t know why the mounds were built or what they were used for. Buildings were built on top of the mounds as well. One mound was used for burials of high priests and chieftains. That mound was severally damaged by the building of a railroad to Macon back in 1840 and again in 1870s. The other mounds were damaged by the building of defense works during the civil war for the city of Macon and by farming and ranching activities from the 1600 till the early 1900’s. The mounds were built by hand with baskets of dirt carried and dumped to build up the layers. When they excavated they could actually see individual piles of dirt from each basket full. The mounds were capped with a layer of red clay to preserve the mounds (they did not have grass on them back then like they do today). The National Park was created in 1934 or 1936 (different displays had different years). During the 1930’s, a large excavation of site was accomplished with the help of the WPA and CCC. Over 2 million artifacts were cataloged. There was a major Ocmulgee Indian settlement at the base of the mounds. The site was abandoned in the 1600s. During the 1930 excavations, the floor of a Earth Lodge was discovered and carbon dated to be over 1000 years old. The raised dais where the chieftains sat with a clay eagles head was uncovered along with clay benches around the perimeter where the lesser officials sat cross legged. They even had depressions for their feet to rest in. The raised dais was aligned so that the sun would come in through the entrance and align with the place where the chief sat at the summer and winter solstice. They built a recreation of the Earth Lodge using similar wood and reed construction as the original. Another village was founded not far away in the park on the river called the Lamar village. Today it’s a swamp and not accessible by the public.

The weather was cloudy, fogging, a light drizzle and a bit chilly. So we were not sure if we would walk to the mounds or not when we arrived. We explored the small store, the extensive visitor center exhibit with artifacts unearthed at the site, watched the park movie and collected our 75th passport stamp. We are going to count this as a National Monument since that is what it was when we planned this stop. By the time we got finished in the visitor center, the drizzle had mostly moved off so we hiked out to the Earth Lodge and duck walked down the tunnel into the large room. We then went to the cornfield mound and temple mounds (Great Temple and Lesser Temple). The drizzle moved back in and we headed back to the Behemoth.

On the way back to the Wanderer, we stopped at the Walmart in Macon to pick up a few items. We were amazed how the shelves were empty from the panic buying. We were able to find the few things we needed. Its just amazing.