West Virginia Trip Post #1 - Hopewell

Last month I had the opportunity to take a group of high school students on a 6 day trip to West Virginia.  Most (ok, all!) of the trip organization was done by one of my colleagues and I was simply an adult chaperone.  The next several posts on this blog will detail this trip as it was a wonderful experience.  We learned a great deal about West Virginia history and had a ton of fun.  Today's post, the first, actually isn't about West Virginia, but a stop we made along the way in Ohio to the Hopewell Culture National Historic Park.

This historical park is home to several mounds that are burial grounds from the Hopewell culture during the period of 200 BCE and 500 CE.  At the site we walked around and toured the mounds.  Very interesting!

As you can see, the mounds are very well maintained.  There are a few trails in the area as well, including a small museum inside that is free to tour.  In the visitor's center I found a National Parks Passport book.  Being the geek I am I purchased one and got a stamp in it for visiting this site.  :-)  The guy working the visitor's center showed us the example passport book and shared its story.  This book was filled with tons of stamps.  Not sure how many parks were still to be visited, but whoever owned this book had visited most of the national parks in the U.S.  This person left their book at this site, but never returned to pick it up.  No name/address was left in site, so now the center keeps it on hand just in case someone does come looking for it.  Sad story!!!  

For more on this park, go here:

Hopewell Culture National Historic Park

If you ever find yourself in this area (Chillicothe, OH) be sure to stop at the Hopewell Culture National Historic Park and tour the mounds and museum inside.  It's a great educational experience.  As I was on a school trip, my own kids were not with me, so hopefully sometime in the future we'll be able to make a return visit so they can experience the mounds and the history of the area.