St Louis - Chahokia Mounds and Missouri History Museum

 

Monk's Mound

I had planned on going to Chahokia Mounds, the largest prehistoric Indian site north of Mexico. Unfortunately, the museum was under renovation, but we still headed out to the site since the rain of the morning had paused. This land was settled in 700 AD and became a highly structured community in about 1000 AD. This was a rich land for crops and wild game. Cahokia became a regional center from 1050 to 1200 AD with a population of 10,000 to 20,000 people. Cahokia was organized around Monks Mound, a 40 acre Grand Plaza and many smaller plazas. The mounds were made from earth dug up from ‘borrow pits’ with stone tools and then transported to create the mounds in baskets on people’s backs. Monks mound rose over 100 feet and covers over 14 acres. A massive building once stood on the top.

What Chahokia might have looked like

We then went on to visit the Missouri History Museum. This was a disappointment after the great museums we visited in the last two weeks. It seemed more like a promotion for the Missouri Historical Organization than anything. The museum is in the park that had the 1904 World’s Fair but was built later. The best of the permanent collection was the exhibit about the fair. 

Model of 1904 World Fair Grounds

But most interesting was a collection about the LGBTQ+ community and their struggles over the years in this community. It really did a great job of explaining that there are lots of variation in sexual nature. We really appreciated the video testimony of a man who became a woman after discovering that they had XXY chromosomes and was going through menopause.

LGBTQ+ Exhibit