Sugarloaf Mound in St. Louis, Missouri, is the city’s only surviving Mississippian platform mound and its oldest human-made structure, built by Native Americans who lived there from about A.D. 600 to 1300. Once part of a landscape of roughly 40 earthworks that gave St. Louis the name “Mound City,” it is the last visible remnant after the others were largely destroyed in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Though unexcavated and of uncertain original purpose, it served as a landmark in 1809 and later endured houses, quarrying, and highway construction. Preservation efforts now seek to restore and protect it.

St. Louis, Missouri · USA