The Mysterious Stone Forts of Southern Illinois	by Mike Chervinko
Central States Archaeological Societies 2025 January Journal	Carbondale, Illinois

This excerpt from "The Mysterious Stone Forts of Southern Illinois" published in the 2025 Central States Archaeological Societies 2025 January Journal Read this and mores in the Central States Archaeological 2025 January Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2026

At top: Figure 1. A picture of part of the sign next to the fort in Giant City. It shows the distribution of the forts across southern Illinois, except Murray Bluff. Murray had not been identified at the time the sign was made. Note the east-west distribution of the sites.

Common ruins one can visit in North America include mounds, mound centers, village sites, and cemeteries. Still, other less-known and less-common prehistoric structures exist. One such set of lesser-known prehistoric structures are the mysterious stone walls scattered across the southernmost tip of southern Illinois. Colloquially known as “Stone Forts,” these eleven walled sites are loosely arranged in an east-west fashion across the state’s southern tip (see Fig. 1). What makes them distinct from prehistoric stone walls found elsewhere in the United States is that they have all been dated to the Late Woodland era. Archaeologists have dated them indirectly, based on pottery sherds found around each one. I have personally found Late Woodland era cord marked sherds at the fort located at Kerr Canyon. Also interesting is that all eleven forts are found on high isolated places, and they often delineate the narrowest point of a peninsula-like bluff formation from the rest of the bluff. The walls’ functions are unknown, but experts speculate they may have aided in hunting, or served ceremonial purposes. Unless all represent snakes, they don’t share any forms ressembling other effigies. Several of the walls have a break in them, making crossing from one side to the other easier. They range from about 100 feet long to 300 feet and they range in shape from a straight line to a perfect U-shape. Some are sort of squiggle shaped, like a snake in motion. Early nineteenth century records indicate they were six feet wide at the ground and six feet tall. More recent discoveries indicate they were built into the ground for added support. Nowadays they are found in various states of preservation, ranging from barely visible to fully restored. Some are on government land, while the others are on private. Kentucky has this exact style of wall of the same age, and they have two. Tennessee has one, which is a state park, known as “The Old Stone Fort.” I have visited ten of the eleven in southern Illinois, and the following is a short description of each.

Giant City
The stone fort at Giant City State Park is probably the most well-known and the most deliberately-visited fort of the bunch. I say deliberately because a few others are in popular spots, but people often walk by those forts without noticing them. At Giant City, the fort is the point of the trail and there is posted signage about the site. During the construction of the park in the 1930s, the CCC disassembled the wall, figuring they could use the rocks for park development. At some point they had a change of heart, and rebuilt the wall into its current form, using its original rocks. No known pictures of the wall prior to the CCC’s work are known to exist.

The trail it is on is called the Stone Fort Trail. It is of moderate intensity, 1/3rd mile trail, up the bluff and around the wall and associated overlooks. Southern Illinois University conducted formal excavations there in the 1990s, but yielded few artifacts. They did find some Late Woodland pottery sherds.

Millstone Bluff
The stone fort at Millstone Bluff is probably the least impressive visually, but it is the wall that demonstrated the Late Woodland natives built the walls into the ground too. Millstone Bluff is part of the Shawnee National Forest, and it is mostly known for the Mississippian-era village site found immediately north of the fort, though there is plenty of evidence of Late Woodland occupation all around the knob. There is evidence the Mississippians repurposed some of the fort’s rocks for other structures. This site has been formally excavated several times, most recently in the 1990s and early 2000s by Southern Illinois University. SIU-C continues to do research there, but at a greatly reduced extent. ....

This excerpt from "The Mysterious Stone Forts of Southern Illinois" published in the 2025 Central States Archaeological Societies 2025 January Journal Read this and mores in the Central States Archaeological 2025 January Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2026

Figure 2. A portion of the Giant City fort in summer.

 

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