Cahokia

5/30/2023

This morning, pretty early, we drove almost 50 miles into East St Louis to see the Cahokia Mounds, covering some 6 square miles and included at least 120 different mounds with Monks Mound being the largest and had between 10,000 & 20,000 people. By 1350-1400 had been abandoned. It’s so big that one of the trails is 10 miles long, no we didn’t ‘t walk that. By the time we came down from the top of Monks mound, about 150 feet tall, a 10 story building, the humidity was really cranking up plus that was a LOT of steps to climb considering we haven’t done much lately.

Around 2oo acres including Monks Mound were enclosed with a stockade, including towers for archers to shoot from.

Monks Mound is the largest of the earthen mounds in America.

Just think  Monks Mound a massive 10 story mound of dirt built by carrying one basket full of dirt at a time. It also had at least one large building on top, each log had to be hoisted to the top someway.

From the top of Monks mound you could see the Gateway Arch in St Louis about 10 miles away.