I couldn't agree more Daron. I worked closely with the Osage etc. on the acquisition and am familiar with the tribe's aspirations for a park and interpretive center. However, there are a couple of caveats and hurdles. 1. The more publicity this idea gets, the greater the chance of a land speculator buying up some of these parcels and holding them ransom. 2. Principal Chief Jim Gray, who was really the driving force behind this project, was recently ousted and his opponent actually used the acquisition of the property against him, saying it was not a good use of tribe money (my understanding). It seems there is not exactly a consensus within the tribe regarding how they are going to deal with the property in the future. At the end of the day, it would make a great park. The view toward the river is excellent and, of course, the mound itself is by far the oldest man-made structure in the city. GRG and the folks that are working on the Mounds Heritage Trail are well aware of the capacity of the land to fit into a south-riverfront trail, so that is a real possibility in the future. Unfortunately, the land is really cut off by the highway. One more note; if anyone is interested in seeing the property, I highly recommend viewing it only from the street. Because of the sacred nature of the site and the disgusting behavior of looters, the Osage, the police, and a network of volunteers are closely watching the property and will not take kindly to trespassing. An organized and authorized tour of the property can be set up by Landmarks Association if anyone wants to get a group together.

The organization immediately jumped when the property came for sale and began coordinating with various stakeholders to try to find a way to preserve the land. The mound is a Landmark for St. Louis in the truest sense of the word, being the sole survivor of St. Louis' original architecture and having been used as a surveying point for the original town survey of 1809. I hope that there is a bright future for the property, where citizens can enjoy the land and learn about the prehistory of the city.

There's an interesting, modern take on the city's indian mounds in the front room at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. It's only up for a couple more days, but it's worth checking out.

As far as lumping it with Cahokia and the UNESCO designation, it is not likely. There are many mounds extant in the area, especially on the East Side, which are 1. closer to Cahokia than Sugarloaf, 2. Definitely associated with Mississippian settlement, 3. More intact, and still not part of the UNESCO designation. Sugarloaf, if Mississippian, would have been related to the greater Cahokian sphere of influence, but archaeologists are not really sure what the relationship would have been. Considering it has been heavily altered and we are not even sure that it is Mississippian, it would be a long stretch to get UNESCO designation. As far as erosion goes on Monks Mound, that is a major problem and one that they have been struggling to overcome for decades. They have problems with water percolating through the mound and causing slumping. They actually installed a drainage system in some of the worst parts and have rebuilt severely slumped sections, but it will always be a battle. Same with Sugarloaf. The southern end of the structure was truncated by the construction of a quarry access road, probably in the early 20th century. As a result, it is artificially steep and the covered with invasive brush amidst exposed, eroding earth. It needs stabilization in a bad way.

Baby steps, but progress never-the-less:

http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/colu ... ign=LEEDCC

A sacred site in St. Louis will return to the Osage Nation

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/a-s ... age-nation

For the first time in its history, St. Louis is acknowledging the sovereignty of the Osage Nation and its ancestral rights to the oldest human-made structure in the city’s limits.

A new agreement will transfer the sacred Sugarloaf Mound to the Osage Nation. St. Louis, once known as “Mound City,” was home to more than a hundred of these sacred structures built by Native peoples centuries ago. The decision to transfer this mound is an important step to acknowledging the city’s Indigenous roots, advocates say.