Parked at Home 2026, 5 Effigy Mounds National Monument
On Wednesday, April 16 from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., I watched another installment to the “Parked at Home” webinar series, this time featuring Effigy Mounds National Monument in northeastern Iowa. The program was hosted by Ranger Allison Horrocks, with Ranger Susan Snow joining live from the monument itself, which Ranger Allison jokingly described as “only about an 18-hour car ride” from the Blackstone River Valley. Spanning roughly 2,500 acres in the Upper Mississippi River Valley, the park preserves more than 200 earthen mounds set within a landscape shaped by water, time, and human memory. In contrast to the 46-mile Blackstone River, the Mississippi River stretches over 2,300 miles, producing rich soil that has long supported agriculture. As author Robert Macfarlane observed, “No landscape speaks with a single tongue”, a fitting lens for understanding the area.
Ranger Susan introduced the unique geography of the region, particularly the Driftless Area, which spans parts of Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois. Unlike much of the surrounding Midwest, this area escaped glaciation during the last Ice Age, leaving behind steep ridges and deep valleys more reminiscent of New England than prairie farmland. Within this terrain lie the monument’s defining features: hundreds of burial and ceremonial mounds, some shaped like animals or water spirits. Bears and birds are among the most common forms. While tens of thousands of mounds once existed across the region, including over 40,000 in Wisconsin and 10,000 in Iowa, only a fraction remain today, as many were lost to intense farming after westward expansion.
Along the nearby Yellow River once stood a sawmill built in 1829 to supply lumber for the construction of Fort Crawford. Its superintendent was Jefferson Davis, decades before his role as the president of the Confederate States of America. The fort itself played a part in the forced removal of Native American nations from their homelands east of the Mississippi. Though remnants such as stone retaining walls still exist, this chapter of history is not yet widely interpreted due to the area’s inaccessibility. Rangers are actively working toward a more thoughtful and respectful presentation of these stories.
Effigy Mounds also sits within a major migratory corridor for birds, also known as a flyway. The National Audubon Society recognizes the Upper Mississippi River Flyway as a critical route for more than 300 bird species, some of whom have flown this migratory route for thousands of years. The monument’s ecological significance is matched by cultural importance: twenty affiliated Tribal Nations consider this land part of their heritage. Many of these nations were divided and displaced following European contact, yet maintain connections to the site.
The park’s history reflects both horrific missteps and heartening progress. In the mid-2000s, Effigy Mounds had serious violations with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. Later, authorities discovered that human remains subject to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act had been improperly stored in a former superintendent’s garage for decades. These actions caused significantly eroded trust in the park. Since then, remains have been repatriated and reburied, while new leadership has worked closely with local tribal nations to rebuild relationships. Ranger Susan highlighted ongoing collaborations, including a sister park partnership with the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska and joint environmental work with the United States Geological Survey and Ho-Chunk environmental experts to monitor water quality and develop more respectful scientific practices. These efforts include training scientists to collect data in ways that acknowledge cultural significance. Looking ahead, the park hopes to reintroduce native plants such as arrowroot as part of ongoing restoration.
Modern technology is reshaping how the site is studied. Because excavation is no longer permitted due to a wise policy passed during the 1970s, researchers rely on non-invasive tools such as LiDAR scanning. One striking example is the “String of Pearls”, a line of nineteen conical mounds lined up toward the Mississippi River. Current research suggests a possible solar alignment on the day exactly between the summer solstice and autumnal equinox. Many of the mounds date back over 2,000 years to Hopewell culture, with later transitions toward effigy shapes around 1400 years ago. Mound building in the region appears to have largely stopped around 750 years ago, roughly coinciding with the rise of corn, beans, and squash agriculture.
The monument is a site of active ecological and cultural restoration. Native Americans historically used regular, controlled burning to maintain an oak savanna landscape, but European settlers suppressed this practice, favoring dense hardwood forests and agricultural land. As a result, trees grew throughout the region, including through the mounds. Park staff have carefully removed up to fifty trees, some as up to eighty feet tall. In this rare case, removing trees was beneficial to both the cultural landscape and the ecosystem.
Researchers at the park continue to explore the landscape. At places like Nazekaw Terrace, they believe additional mounds once existed but were later plowed over. A Ho-Chunk elder who works with the park can identify former mound locations by walking the land and feeling subtle differences in the soil underfoot. Many of the mounds were used for multiple burials over generations, likely serving to keep families together in death as well as in life. Nearby, the Marching Bear Mound Group includes bird-shaped effigies that may represent falcons.
Large-scale environmental restoration is also underway within the park, including in Sny Magill unit along the Mississippi River floodplain. The park received $7 million in ecosystem restoration funding through the Navigation and Ecosystem Sustainability Program with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. While a relatively small amount within the broader federal budget, it represents a major investment for the park, which would need twenty years to raise similar funds and complete work independently. Additional improvements, including new trails through the Heritage Addition and the development of kayaking tours, will better connect visitors to the landscape. Despite these improvements, visiting the mounds themselves can be physically challenging. Many are not easily accessible, requiring a climb of 400 feet at a 70-degree slope. In the summer months, visitors must also contend with what Ranger Susan described as “a sea of mosquitoes and gnats.”
The monument is also a place of living connection. Ranger Susan described visits from members of affiliated Tribal Nations, including a bus of elders from the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma who had the opportunity to return to their ancestral homeland, something many had never experienced before. The park has hosted relationship-building activities with tribal partners, including paddling dugout canoes and visiting cultural and historic sites together. One maintenance worker at the park, who is Ho-Chunk and French, also known as Métis, even constructed his own dugout canoe, which is expected to be used in a future “great canoe journey.” Descendants of leaders such as Chief Ti'wakan continue to visit the park across multiple generations, reinforcing the deep, ongoing ties between people and place. Outside the park, Ho-Chunk and Meskwaki people have purchased their own land to manage themselves, which was not a federal reservation created by the U.S. government.
Ranger Susan closed with a reflection on the broader meaning of the site. The mounds represent what she described as “the continuity of human feeling”, a shared desire to honor and remain connected to those who came before us. At the same time, the landscape tells a more difficult story tied to Manifest Destiny, whose legacy includes both physical scars on the land and lasting scars on the people who were displaced from it. Her final words underscored the importance of active stewardship: “Doing nothing is not doing nothing. Neglect is not benign.” After learning more about the history of mismanagement at the site, it is heartening to know it is now in good hands.