最新杏吧原创

ST. LOUIS 鈥� What is now 最新杏吧原创 was once home to more than 100 mounds constructed by Native Americans 鈥� so many that 最新杏吧原创 was once known as 鈥淢ound City.鈥� Settlers tore most of them down, and just one remains.

Now, that last remaining earthen structure, Sugarloaf Mound, is closer to being back in the hands of the Osage Nation.

The city of 最新杏吧原创, the Osage Nation and the nonprofit Counterpublic announced on Thursday that an 86-year-old woman who owns a home that sits atop Sugarloaf Mound has agreed to sell it and eventually transfer the property to the tribe.

Meanwhile, the 最新杏吧原创 Board of Aldermen plans to pass a resolution in January recognizing the Osage Nation鈥檚 sovereignty, Alderwoman Cara Spencer said. Eventually, the goal is to develop a cultural and interpretive center at the site that overlooks the Mississippi River a few miles south of downtown.

鈥淥ne step for our tribal sovereignty is reclaiming the lands that we inhabited for hundreds of years,鈥� said Andrea Hunter, director of the Osage Nation Historic Preservation Office in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. 鈥淎nd to be able to at least salvage one mound in 最新杏吧原创, on the west side of the Mississippi River 鈥� it means a lot to us, to regain our heritage.鈥�

But a sticking point remains. A pharmaceutical fraternity owns the only other house on the mound, and it has yet to agree to give up the property.

Native Americans built thousands of mounds across the U.S. in the centuries prior to colonization. All were sacred ceremonial sites, but some also were used for housing or commerce. Many were burial sites. Tribal elites sometimes lived on them, Hunter said.

The mounds in the 最新杏吧原创 area are believed to have been built from roughly 800 to 1450. Even today, many mounds remain in nearby Cahokia. Experts believe that at one time centuries ago, Cahokia was home to up to 20,000 people.

Sugarloaf Mound and Big Mound were among the most prominent of the human-made structures in what is now 最新杏吧原创, said James McAnally, executive director of Counterpublic, a 最新杏吧原创 nonprofit that works to effect change through art-based projects and helped facilitate the new land acquisition.

鈥淭hey were built on the river specifically to be signal mounds,鈥� McAnally said. Native Americans on the western side of the Mississippi could send smoke signals visible to those in Cahokia to let them know if people were seen coming down the waterway, Hunter said.

Mounds still stood prominently in 最新杏吧原创 at its founding in 1764. Visitors 鈥� even members of European royalty 鈥� made the trip to the fledgling city just to see them, said Patricia Cleary, a U.S. history professor at California State University, Long Beach, and author of the book 鈥�Mound City: The Place of the Indigenous Past and Present in 最新杏吧原创.鈥�

Eventually, removal treaties forced Native Americans away from 最新杏吧原创. Settlers had little use for the mounds.

鈥淭hey used them to build up the bank of the Mississippi River and used them as fill for roads and railroads with total disregard for our ancestors鈥� graves that were in many of those,鈥� Hunter said. 鈥淭here are even accounts that as they were taking Big Mound down, they were simply throwing the bones into the Mississippi River.鈥�

Today, 最新杏吧原创 landmarks dot locations where mounds once stood, including several places in Forest Park, where mounds were demolished to make way for the World鈥檚 Fair in 1904. By the early 20th century, only Sugarloaf Mound remained.

In 2009, the Osage Nation purchased the first section of the mound, dismantled a home and began work to stabilize it. But two homes remained in private hands.

One of those homeowners, 86-year-old Joan Heckenberg, has agreed to transfer ownership to the Osage Nation once she either moves or dies.

Heckenberg has lived in the house 81 years, since her grandfather bought it and convinced his skeptical wife to move the family there.

鈥淏ut they fell in love with it,鈥� Heckenberg said of her grandparents.

The agreement with Heckenberg leaves just one other private house on the mound, a building owned by Kappa Psi, a national pharmaceutical fraternity.

McAnally told the Post-Dispatch Thursday after the latest news about the mound broke that fraternity representatives contacted Counterpublic about finding a resolution.

鈥淭hey are working with us,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey haven鈥檛 agreed to any terms. Our goal is to come to terms by the end of this calendar year.鈥�

McAnally said fraternity representatives previously declined a Counterpublic offer to buy the property for the Osage for $190,000. He said two pharmacy students recently lived at the fraternity house.

He said Heckenberg has an option agreement in place to sell her property for $160,000 once she finds a new place to live.

Spencer said the mounds are an important and overlooked part of 最新杏吧原创, and preserving Sugarloaf is vital.

鈥淭his is a really special place to the Osage history and to our Native American heritage in this country, which has largely been erased,鈥� Spencer said.