Baraboo, Dells, and Devil's Lake RegionCole, Harry Ellsworth
History
Baraboo, Dells, and Devil's Lake Region
Cole, Harry Ellsworth
Baraboo (Wis.); Dells of the Wisconsin (Wis.); Devil's Lake (Wis.); Sauk County (Wis.)
The length of the mound is 214 feet and width at the shoulder 48 feet.
In order to assemble this large amount of earth the Indians, having
neither shovels nor iron tools of any kind, used bark or other baskets,
scrapers of wood or stone, and their hands. The observer will realize
with what labor and under what difficulties the workers accomplished
their task. When the Indians were gathered here, in camp they, with
their activity and fantastic dress, must have presented an unusual
picture in the boundless wilderness.
[Illustration]
The man mound was located and platted by W. H. Canfield, local
surveyor, historian, and archeologist, July 23, 1859. The original
survey is now in the possession of the Sauk County Historical Society.
The name of the discoverer of this earthwork has been lost in the
dimness of time. When the highway was graded a number of years ago the
lower part of the legs were destroyed and subsequently the feet, for
years beneath a board fence on the north side of the road, were
leveled. Why the mound was built is explained near the close of this
article.
On August 7, 1908, the Man Mound Park was formally dedicated at a joint
state assembly of the Wisconsin Archeological Society and Sauk County
Historical Society, the bronze tablet, a gift by J. Van Orden of
Baraboo, being unveiled at that time. Previously the land had been
purchased by the two societies and the Landmarks Committee of the
Wisconsin Federation of Women's Clubs.
Region Rich in Indian Mounds.
In primeval times the Baraboo region was rich in Indian mounds and,
although the plow has been active since the 40's and 50's of the last
century, many of the aboriginal earthworks still remain. They were
erected by the savages on hillside and on plain, by lake, stream, and
on the upland, in the deep forest and on the open prairie. They are the
relics of a people now disappearing and are of ever increasing interest
to the investigating archeologist.
The theory was at one time advanced that a pre-Indian race, the Mound
Builders, constructed the earthworks, but modern archeologists have
disproved the idea of the existence of any such a pre-historic people,
holding the builders of the mounds were none other than the Indians. It
is believed the Winnebago are the authors of the majority of the
earthworks found in Wisconsin. The great number of these heaps of earth
scattered over the country indicate a considerable Indian population
extending over no small period of time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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