Video added

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Check out the video added to  THE GLASS MOUNDS SITE : 

Glass Mounds Historical Marker Dedication 2014
‘Glass’ Mounds Historical Marker Dedication video, near Franklin, Tennessee, with Toye Heape, Mark Tolley, Kevin Smith, Mack Pritchard.
Thanks to : Flick Wiltshire, Videographer, & Vintage Flick Productions

• Glass Mounds Account @ the bank here in Westhaven
• raising funds
• developing site
• reflection seating
• parking
• exhibits

Old Natchez Trace deserves dedicated preservation efforts

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Old Natchez Trace deserves dedicated preservation efforts | Opinion
Together, we must preserve Tennessee history—we owe it to our past, our present, and our future generations.
 
• Laura Turner, Guest Columnist, President of Citizens for Old Natchez Trace.

tennessean.com/story/opinion/2022/03/01/tennessee-must-preserve-historical-landmarks-like-old-natchez-trace/6970792001/

 
More than 400 miles of the original Natchez Trace footpath went through Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Natchez territories by the late 18th century, connecting Middle Tennessee to Southern Mississippi. 
 
Over time, much of the original trail became local roads, but the Old Natchez Trace and its modern-day counterpart, the Natchez Trace Parkway, are so much more than a trail guiding one of the most scenic drives in America – it’s an historical and cultural landscape.
 

Old Natchez Trace Road is covered with water from the Harpeth River Sunday, Feb. 24, 2019, after days of rain hit Middle Tennessee.
 
Citizens for Old Natchez Trace was started in 2013 to protect and conserve this historic trail from being devastated by a road widening project which would have erased the Trace.
 
As a result, the county adopted a sensitive template for this historic road preserving the tree canopy and protecting the 182 stone box graves under the roadbed in front of Old Town on the Old Natchez Trace.  And now, a new challenge arises. 
Alice Hooker was a celebrated land conservationist who dedicated much of her life to preserving land in Tennessee. One property she owned and passed down to her children is located along the original footpath of Natchez Trace, which is rich in scenic beauty with wide swaths of open fields and trees meandering along the Harpeth River.
 
According to National Park Service, 1935 maps show the roadbed of the original 1801 Natchez Trace run directly on the Hooker property. And it is for this property that, in 2020, Lisa Hooker Campbell and her two brothers used the cover of COVID-19 and a series of loopholes to revoke their late mother’s restrictive covenants on her land with rapacious avarice. 
 

 

The Natchez Trace rural landscape in Williamson County was placed on the endangered list again in 2016 under the threat of development, according to the Tennessee Preservation Trust.
 
From the first filing, the Hooker’s development application with the Williamson County Planning Commission was riddled with problems. The Planning staff’s denial points to several deficiencies: traffic impact analysis, hydrological analysis, failure to comply with existing zoning laws, and the natural resources plan. 
 
Archaeological studies of land within a three-mile radius of the Hooker property have identified 77 recorded archaeological sites, so the likelihood for Indigenous remains and evidence of Native American settlements on the property is extremely high.
 
Without the necessary archaeological and environmental studies done on the Hooker property, any development will permanently erase the cultural significance of this land from Tennessee history. The history of this land and the people who have lived here is worth learning – some who own culturally significant land see themselves as stewards of it, others only see dense development dollar signs.  
 

Laura Turner
 
In Williamson County, our historic, scenic, and culturally significant resources are being destroyed. County leaders voted unanimously to adopt a one house to 5-acre land use plan to protect rural landscapes in 2020. Traffic is abominable and getting worse. Residential growth does not pay for itself, taxpayers pay for it. Our tax dollars pay for the new schools, widened rural roads and infrastructure needed for developers’ dense subdivisions. Our ‘Town and Country’ lifestyle fuels the economic development engine of the County. When the ‘country’ part of the County is gone, this engine will choke and stall. 
 
The Old Natchez Trace is a literal path that allows us to almost transcend time, giving us a deeper understanding of the past, a renewed sense of place in our present, and a hope that future generations will be able to appreciate this historic landscape for years to come. But once paved over, it is gone forever.  
 
We need rural preservation, not density devastation. 
 
Together, we must preserve Tennessee history—we owe it to our past, our present, and our future generations. “And when I brought you into a fruitful land to enjoy its bounty and goodness, you defiled my land and corrupted the possession I had promised you.”-Jeremiah 2:7 
 
—- 
 
Laura Turner is the President of Citizens for Old Natchez Trace. 

1st-ever Tribal National Park

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Frog Bay in Wisconsin is the first-ever tribal national park
This pristine land on Lake Superior sits at a crossroads of the Anishinaabe people — and ice caves are nearby.

Frog Bay Tribal National Park is the country’s first tribally owned or controlled park that’s open to the public. The Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (Anishinaabe) created the park on Wisconsin’s Bayfield Peninsula in 2012 after reacquiring an 89-acre parcel. In 2017 a second 86-acre plot was procured, doubling the park’s size.

Visit to Castalian Springs Mounds 5 march

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Middle Cumberland Archaeological Society’s first 2022 meeting will be a field trip to Castalian Springs Mounds State park at 10 am on SATURDAY, MARCH 5.  Kevin E. Smith of Middle Tennessee State University will lead the tour at the mound site. Length of the tour will depend entirely on the temperature – probably plan on an hour.

Founded as a small village around 1100 ce, the native peoples of Castalian Springs embarked on massive-scale construction projects to transform the community into the largest mound center on the Cumberland River east of Nashville. By 1300 ce, the site was a center of religious revitalization and artistic renaissance dominating what is now Sumner County and known throughout the Mississippian world.
Over a decade of MTSU archaeological excavations have revealed a detailed picture of the community – along with evidence for the production of negative painted ceramics, marine shell gorgets, fluorite jewelry, and much more. Kevin Smith, who has led investigations of the site’s history and prehistory for nearly four decades, will guide the tour and provide the newest interpretations. After a hiatus of excavations due to the pandemic, Paul Eubanks (MTSU) plans to resume fieldwork this summer to examine the last remaining major earthworks at the site.
RSVP: If you plan to attend the tour, please email or leave a voicemail for Kevin Smith with your name, number in your party, and contact number/email: kevin.smith@mtsu.edu or 615-898-5958.

tom’s visiting agenda

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As the new president of TASC, am looking forward to re-visiting all the major ‘ancient sites’ in Tennessee & visiting for the first time a couple of the lesser known sites. My goal is to become better acquainted with our cultural heritage so we can come up with a plan to better recognize these sites and return them to a pristine condition. 
Here’s my 2022 itinerary ~ hope you’ll join me, or meet me there, or make some monthly visits on your own.  If i’m missing a good site, please let me know — tom <tasc(at)tennasc.org>.  Thanks.

1 ‘Sellars’ Farm Mound

Missippian mound at old Sellar’s farm

visited sat 29 jan 2022 – cleanup day sponsored by Friends of Long Hunter State Park. now that the trees have been removed, am looking forward to more repair of this site, both fysically & its description. 
• discuss repairing damage (1877 trench cut into it by white archeologist), • renaming native sites with native names,   • find age of big tree stump. 

(i think a better name for it is Tvpvsvnv Mound (

tvpvsvnv

(tuh-puh-sha-nuh) = dragonfly) for the unique dragonflies found there on Spring Creek.)

2  ‘Pinson’ Mounds – south of Jackson

 visited sat 26 feb 2022 (3hour drive west)
cold day — checked out weathering of mounds since tree removal, interpretation of added acreage 180 acres & 7 mounds that president emeritus Mark Tolley worked so hard on getting added into the preservation area.  visited Twin Mounds & the 2nd Big Mound on the west side of the park — no trail to get there. 
3  ‘Glass’ mounds  – west of Franklin
visited sat 26 mar 2022 with Larry Davis (1hour drive southwest, past Aaittafama) 
plan cleaning, tree removal, Mound 2 – accessibility, visibility — dirt pile is ½ gone, but still remains; construction debris dumped – needs removal; 2nd mound ¼ mile to the east  is at least 8 feet high but totally covered in privet & honeysuckle, making it invisible,  would make a good cleaning project.
4 Chickamauga mound – Chattanooga, off Amnicola Highway
finalize text & location of marker. tree removal.  repair looter damage to mound
visit sat 30 apr 2022
5 Aaittafama / Kellytown/Forest Hills
visit sat 21 may 2022
6 Browns Creek missing cemetery, Nashville
visit sat 18 jun 2022
7 Fewkes Mound, Brentwood
visit sat 30 jul 2022
8 Knoxville Mound, UTK
visit sat 27 aug 2022
9 Rutherford-Kizer Mound, Hendersonville 
visit sat 24 sep 2022
10 Mound Bottom, Kingston Spring
visit sat 22 oct 2022
11 “Indi**” Mound TN, 22 miles west of Clarksville
visit sat 19 nov 2022
12 Brick Church mound site, Nashville
visit sat 17 dec 2022