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Research and writing leading to a book on the history of the Indian mounds in the area now occupied by the city of St. Louis, Missouri, showing how they shaped and were shaped by the city’s development.

In the mid-1800s, daguerreotypist Thomas Easterly documented the transformation of St. Louis, Missouri, with images of buildings, roads, and railways. He also chronicled the disappearance of St. Louis’s indigenous past. Perhaps most striking was the destruction of the Big Mound, a massive earthen structure. Part of a ceremonial district erected by Mississippian Mound Builders hundreds of years earlier, it was the largest of over two dozen mounds that gave the city its early claim to fame. During the 1800s, all—except one outlier—were razed. This project explores the life, death, and afterlife of the mounds, revealing their significance for both Indian and non-Indian peoples. It examines both the literal destruction of Indian cultural artifacts and the narrative erasure of Indian peoples in histories of the city’s development. I will conduct research for two chapters and draft three others for my book on the mounds, under advance contract with University of Missouri Press.