Originally at least nine burial mounds dotted this area, but only one remains today. From about 1400-1700 A.D. the Woodland Indians, ancestors of the present day Dakota, buried their dead in mounds. The largest of White Bear's mounds stood at this site and became a noted tourist attraction. In 1885, William F. Markoe, son of the property owner, used his vacation to shape 480 fifteen inch pieces of tamarack into walls for a gazebo atop the mound, then furnished the interior with a round table and circular chairs. The gazebo was blown down during a storm in 1887, and the mound followed in April 1889. After much debate, the Village of White Bear decided to demolish the mound following an accident during the previous season when a horse drawing a carriage of passengers from Stillwater was spooked, the carriage overturned, Charles Wheeler was killed, and his sister Nellie was injured. Nellie Wheeler's lawsuit against the Village of White Bear was denied, but the mound was ordered removed and the road straightened. Grave goods and nineteen skeletons were exhumed from the mound and shipped by box car to the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul. The artifacts were accepted, but the car with the remains was returned to White Bear. Seventeen of the skeletons were buried at Union Cemetery, and two were reburied on the property near the original mound. On the centennial of the mound's demolition, a marker was placed on the previously unmarked gravesite at Union Cemetery. The cottage known as Mound Cottage stood at the corner of Shady Lane and Lake Avenue; this small summer home was one of the first cottages at the lake and the site of the first Catholic masses in the area.