Hopeton Overlook

Illustration shows how the Hopeton Works may have looked in the 1840s, before they were damaged

Squier and Davis, 1848

The Hopeton Works represent an iconic American Indian monumental landscape. Principally, they are composed of a 20-acre circle joined to an irregular, 20-acre square with sides over 900 feet in length. The circle's diameter is 1,054 feet, a dimension shared by several other circular enclosures in Ohio. There were two smaller circles on the higher ground along the square’s eastern edge, and a pair of 2,400-foot-long parallel walls headed southwest, perfectly framing a vista of the winter solstice sunset. Importantly, the earthwork walls were not mere berms of earth, but carefully designed arrangements of specific sediments chosen for particular qualities. Red and yellow sediments were the primary building materials selected for Hopeton's walls. With only limited exception, red sediments were placed on the exterior of the embankment walls while yellow sediments were placed on the interior. You'll see an example of this at Stop 9 along the southern wall of the square. 

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