Silver Mound is a large, isolated hill where prehistoric Indians gathered to quarry an attractive quartzite used to make chipped stone tools. Several aboriginal quarries lie along the mound's rimrock, and thousands of tons of waste rock from these pits show that quarrying was carried on selectively over many centuries. Fields around the mound are littered with quartzite fragments and flakes left from making and shaping trade blanks for transport to outlying areas. Stone spearpoints, knives, and scrapers made from this colorful material were distributed widely throughout Wisconsin and parts of nearby states. The earliest Indians who migrated into the Midwest, perhaps 10-12,000 years ago, made many spearpoints and knives from rock quarried here, making this site one of Wisconsin's oldest archeological monuments. The name "Silver Mound" came from the mistaken belief of the first white explorers that Indians were mining silver here.