Mound Prairie -- SH 21 W of Alto TX
N 31° 35.591 W 095° 09.086
15R E 295871 N 3497352
The state historic marker for Mound Prairie, named for a series of prehistoric Caddo Indian mounds, west of Alto
Waymark Code: WMXKNB
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 01/25/2018
Views: 0
This prehistoric Caddo Indian Mound is located on private property outside of the Caddo Mounds state historic site west of Alto. The marker is located next to the mound in a pullout along State Highway 21, the route of El Camino Real de los Tejas.
"MOUND PRAIRIE
Bulging out of the earth a few yards form this point, three prehistoric Indian mounds interrupt the prevailing flat terrain. Long overgrown with grass, the mounds and adjacent village (covering about 100 acres) constitute one of the major aboriginal sites in North America. From about 500 to 1100 A.D., Caddoan Indians inhabited the village, which lay near the southwest edge of a great mound-building culture. Called "Mississippian", this culture once flourished throughout the present Eastern United States.
Excavations during 1939-41 and 1968-69 showed two of the mounds to have had ceremonial purposes. One may have been capped with bright yellow clay and both apparently supported temples. The tallest mound (about 20 feet) revealed several major burials.
The village, surrounding the mounds but not settled before they were built, contained many round houses that probably resembled giant beehives. Thousands of pot fragments, some pipes, charred corn cobs and nuts, and flint points were found in the area.
Centuries after its abandonment by the Indians, this region was again a center of civilization when, in 1690, the first Spanish mission in East Texas was built nearby to minister to the Tejas Indians. (1970)"
The El Camino Real de los Tejas has been designated a National Historic Trail through the states of Texas and New Mexico. (
visit link)
"From the Rio Grande to the Red River Valley
Come on a journey that will carry you through 300 years of Louisiana and Texas frontier settlement and development on a Spanish colonial "royal road" that originally extended to Mexico City, Mexico.
You are about to travel 2,500 miles, from Mission San Juan Bautista Guerrero, Mexico to Fort St. Jean Baptiste Nachitoches Parish, Louisiana."