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Mound Cemetery
Located north of Arkansas City (Desha County), Mound Cemetery is both a prehistoric and historic burial ground partially located on top of a Native American mound. The earliest marked burial dates to 1866, while the mound was created between AD 1200 and 1600. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 24, 2008.
Evidence suggests that the mound was constructed by members of the Mississippian culture during the final mound-building period in the area. Located about three miles from the main channel of the Mississippi River, the site was built up over the surrounding low-lying and flood-prone countryside over an unknown number of years. Sources report that examinations of the site in the nineteenth century led to the discovery of human remains and pottery in the mound. A team from the Smithsonian Institution visited the site in the mid-1880s, but an excavation has never taken place at the mound.
Early settlers in the Arkansas City area recognized the suitability of the site for a permanent burial ground, as it was protected from flooding. After the completion of an extensive levee system following floods in the early twentieth century, the cemetery expanded to the lower ground around the mound, although interments also continued on the mound. It continues to be utilized in the twenty-first century.
Oscar Bowles moved to the area in the mid-1830s with his family and worked as an overseer on the plantation of John Campbell before purchasing his own land near Arkansas City. The mound was located on this property. Sources indicate that members of the Campbell family are among the graves located on the top of the mound, but no gravestones remain. At the time of the addition of the site to the National Register, the oldest marked grave belonged to Rachel Horton, who died on March 15, 1866. Oscar Bowles drowned during a flood on March 30, 1874, and is buried in the cemetery.
William Bowles, the son of Oscar, is buried in the cemetery. Educated at Washington College in Tennessee, Bowles served in the Twenty-third Arkansas Infantry during the Civil War. After being captured at Port Hudson, he returned home and farmed for the rest of his life. He shares a double gravestone with his wife, Ellen Elmira McMullen Bowles.
An iron fence is located around the cemetery, and family plots are surrounded by smaller fences. The nomination form for the cemetery lists a total of marked 121 graves, with only sixteen deteriorated to the point of illegibility.
Stones made from marble and granite are present, along with some more recent stones made of concrete. Notable stones include the gravesite of J. H. Inman, a member of the Woodmen of the World; the marker is shaped like a tree stump with cut branches. Gravestones from other organizations, including the Royal Circle of Friends and the Knights and Daughters of Tabor, are present, as are several U.S. military stones for veterans of World War I and World War II.
For additional information:
“Mound Cemetery.” National Register of Historic Places registration form. On file at Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, Little Rock, Arkansas. Online at https://www.arkansasheritage.com/docs/default-source/national-registry/DE0002-pdf (accessed January 30, 2025).
David Sesser
Southeastern Louisiana University
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