For about three thousand years, this land was part of a town centered on Nikwasi, the spiritual, political, and physical center of the Cherokee town of that name. A council house or town house atop the mound held the sacred fire, and people gathered there to hear news, make decisions, dance, and take part in ceremonies. Around the mound stood about one hundred houses, a stickball field, and a dance ground, along with hundreds of acres of crops, orchards, and gardens. The Cherokee dominated the southern Appalachians for thousands of years, and when Alexander Cuming visited Nikwasi in 1730, Cherokee towns were autonomous and functioned democratically with both men and women leaders. Cuming called a council at Nikwasi attended by more than two thousand representatives from Cherokee towns, chose an Emperor, and took a Cherokee delegation to London. In 1761 the British, once Cherokee allies, destroyed Nikwasi; after the Cherokee rebuilt it, Americans destroyed it again in 1776. The Cherokee rebuilt once more and lived here until this area was taken by the Treaty of 1819. Cherokee legend says spirit warriors emerged from the mound to defend the Cherokee during an attack when the men were away hunting, and that they also saved Franklin from destruction during the Civil War. Nikwasi is one of the largest surviving mounds in the original Cherokee territory of 140,000 square miles, and in 1946 Macon County schoolchildren saved their pennies and bought the mound through the Macon County Historical Society to protect it from development; it is now owned by the Town of Franklin.