Mounds Efforts Continue

Ohio’s historical society can proceed with efforts to gain control of a set of ancient ceremonial and burial earthworks currently maintained by a country club where members golf alongside the mounds but access to the public is limited, the state Supreme Court rules. At issue before the court were the 2,000-year-old Octagon Earthworks in Newark. The Ohio History Connection, which owns the earthworks, had sought to reclaim a lease held by the Moundbuilders Country Club to turn the site into a public park. The historical society, a nonprofit that contracts with the state, proposed the site along with other ancient sites in Ohio for nomination to the UNESCO World Heritage List and argued it must control access to the earthworks for that nomination to proceed.