Lost Mounds

For thousands of years the Timucuan Indians harvested millions of clams and oysters from Mosquito Lagoon, leaving shells behind that formed mounds like the one at Seminole Rest. Over time most of these mounds were destroyed, including Oak Hill Mound, also called Sam’s Mound, which once stood on a nearby spit of land. In 1918, two thousand railroad cars of shells were reportedly removed from Sam’s Mound for road fill. Former resident Jacqueline Snyder Stevens recalled that people called it Sam’s Mound, that a small railroad was built out there, that the mound was cleared, that roads used to be made of shell, and that she collected pottery and other items there after school while the mound was being taken down. Seminole Rest is one of the few Indian shell mounds remaining along Florida’s Atlantic Coast and is preserved by the National Park Service as a valuable link to the Timucuans’ story.

Oak Hill, Florida · United States