County of sitee: Fulton County
Location of site: CR 9, west of IL 78/97, about 6 miles N. of Havana and 6 miles SE of Lewiston
"The Dickson Mounds Museum, a branch of the Illinois State Museum and a National Historic Site, is one of the major on-site archaeological museums in the United States. It offers a unique opportunity to explore the world of the American Indian in an awe inspiring journey through 12,000 years of human experience in the Illinois River Valley."
~ Dickson Mounds State Museum
"Looking out across the west central Illinois landscape today, with its endless acres of corn and soybean fields, the countryside dotted with barns and farm implements, it is hard to imagine a time before the land was divided into towns and agricultural homesteads. However, at Dickson Mounds State Park, located near the small town of Lewistown, which proudly boasts a population of 2600, visitors are offered a glimpse into an Illinois of a different age, a time in which its people lived in close harmony with the earth.
"Tucked away in a dense thicket of trees on the former family farm for which it is named, the museum building itself rests atop the “mound” structure where Dr. Don Dickson, a Lewiston chiropractor, discovered the remains of several Mississippian people in 1927. Dr. Dickson, who was an amateur in the field of archaeology, began carefully excavating the mound to reveal the bones within. Instead of removing them from the earth, he removed the dirt from around them in order to preserve their placement. His work soon attracted not only the attention of the public, but also major universities, and the University of Chicago later sent a team of archaeologists in the 1930s to assist Dickson.
"The site was also opened as a museum in the ’30s, a rough wooden building placed over the remains to shelter them from the elements, but not from the eyes of the interested and hungry public, who were charged an admission fee of “50 cents for adults and two-bits for children.” Dickson operated the site as a private museum until 1945, when it was acquired by the state of Illinois. The location was then made a state park, and became part of the Illinois State Museum system in 1965.
"For years, the remains of those buried within the mound were on display to the public, even after the current museum building was constructed in 1972. A lengthy walkway ramp was built encircling the location of the bones in order for viewing, and old photos in the part of the museum dedicated to its own history show crowds of people young and old huddled against its railings, smiling and clutching cameras in their hands for photos as they would take at Disneyland or Six Flags.
"However, in the 1970s, vocal unrest began to grow among groups of Native Americans who were dissatisfied with the lack of reverence and sideshow-like treatment given to the remains. They soon began holding demonstrations at Dickson Mounds, aiming to have the bones reinterred. At one point, a group of them were able to enter the museum and place blankets over the remains, removing them from view in a symbolic act of protest, but it wasn’t until the 1990s, when then-president George Bush signed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act that the demands of these groups were met.
"In 1992, then-governor of Illinois Jim Edgar closed the Dickson Mounds facility so that the remains could be covered, and the museum underwent a yearlong restoration project. Red cedar planks were imported from Canada because of the specific length required to cover the area and placed over the remains, which were then covered by a white tarp. The viewing room and walkway remain, but no bones can be seen. Instead, the room is used as a kind of auditorium that hosts a multimedia presentation entitled “Reflections on Three Worlds,” which explores the day-to-day lives of the native peoples and their systems of belief. These days, no photography is allowed in the area." ~ UWire