Oakville Indian Mounds Park and Museum
Oakville Indian Mounds Park and Museum
The Oakville Indian Mounds Park and Museum is an 83-acre state park dedicated to ancient Native American monuments and the historic Cherokee nation of the Southeast. It preserves twenty 2,000-year-old mounds built by Middle Woodland-era (1-500 CE) prehistoric indigenous peoples.
The state museum is designed in the style of a Cherokee council house, as these were the dominant indigenous people of the area at the time of European encounter. It provides exhibits on the Copena culture, displaying more than 1000 archeological artifacts that were excavated on site. It also includes material on the historic Cherokee nation, whose people had migrated to the area and inhabited it by the time of European encounter in the 17th century. They are not descendants of the Copena culture but are believed to have migrated south from the Great Lakes area in ancient times.
In addition, the museum includes a display explaining the history of the so-called “Black-Dutch” people of the area, mixed-race descendants of European and Cherokee who stayed in the area after Indian Removal in the nineteenth century. They generally identified as Cherokee but tried to avoid discrimination by calling themselves “Black Dutch”. Since the mid-twentieth century, they have reclaimed their Cherokee ancestry and, according to the display, four thousand people are now enrolled as members of the state-recognized Echota Cherokee Tribe of Alabama.
The grounds of the museum include part of the Black Warriors’ Path – this path that ran from Fort Mitchell in Russell County to Fort Hampton in Limestone County served as the removal route for 2500 Creek Indians and was traveled by Davy Crockett during the Creek Indian War. Beginning in Cullman County, Alabama, it passes through the state and was long used by Native Americans. Later, British-American pioneers called it Mitchell Trace.
The park hosted the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Cross Country National Junior Olympics in 2008 and will host it in 2015.
The park also has a lake and fishing pier. The street address for the park is 1219 County Rd. 187, Danville, Alabama, 35619.
Editor: Oakville is an unincorporated community located in the southeast corner of Lawrence County. The community has two parks, one dedicated to 20th-century African-American athlete Jesse Owens and the other to Middle Woodland period and Cherokee Native Americans.
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