I’ve posted a few times before about the destruction of the mound in Oxford (last post here) and a couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by someone who grew up very close to the area of the mounds (there historically were several mounds here). This is the area known as the Davis Farm, which in the 1500s was part of a city called “Ulabahali” and is believed to be one of the sites that DeSoto visited during his trek through Alabama.
This is a bit better view of it:
The main ceremonial mound on the farm was almost 40′ high (it’s now only about 5′). The Davis Farm was put on the Alabama Historical Commission / Alabama Preservation Alliance / University of West Alabama 2005 ‘Places in Peril’.
This bridge nearby goes over the Choccolocco creek, along which was the historical town that DeSoto visited. Over this bridge – which you can no longer cross via car, there’s a barrier up – were more mounds.
Pat Snow was generous enough to share these photographs below, and this description:
That mound is not the only mound in the area, but is the last to be disturbed. Across the street sits a house on Boiling Springs Road. The house I believe pre dates the civil war and that house is built on top of another Indian mound. The mound has an artesinal well coming out of it. Also while there was farming in the area you could see the remain of more mounds in the area. These mounds were part of a complex of dwellings and mounds that followed on the western bank of the Chocolaca (sp) Creek all from the Signal Mound all the way to the present day airport. While I was in high school I would go to the farm land in the spring after the fields had been turned and the first rain had come and would look for artifacts. I would find arrow points, shards. I would also find other artifacts like game pieces, hoes, grinding stones and decorative stones. I also found remants of post holes for circular dwellings.
Pictures of some other things excavated from the Davis Farm are here.
In an unrelated move, the owners of the hill, the city’s Commercial Development Authority met Wednesday to deal with a sinkhole found on the Sam’s site. Members authorized putting $350,000 into an escrow account to reimburse Sam’s for the cost of fixing the sinkhole.
…which…Sam’s was so adamant in their response to my questions that they did not own any of the land that was under development, I’m curious as to why Sam’s would be on the hook for fixing the sinkhole if the CDA is really the one responsible for site prep. Right?
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