History Connection intends to get Earthworks lease

After five years of negotiations, the Ohio History Connection said Tuesday that it plans to acquire — through legal means if necessary — the Octagon Earthworks’ lease from Moundbuilders Country Club in Newark to gain full public access to the site in preparation for its World Heritage nomination.

Ohio’s Hopewell Earthworks, which includes Newark’s Octagon Earthworks, began preparing a nomination for a World Heritage designation this past spring. The Octagon Earthworks, one of three earthworks sites in Licking County, includes eight earthen walls measuring about 550 feet long and about 6 feet tall. The site was leased to the Moundbuilders Country Club by the state in 1910 and was developed into a golf course. In 1933, the Ohio History Connection — then known as the Ohio Historical Society — became the property’s owner and Moundbuilders its tenant.

In early 2013, the Ohio History Connection began negotiations with Moundbuilders to gain full access of the site for public and research use. Because the country club is privately owned, the site is open to the public only four times a year.

“We’re hoping to extend that public access and give folks the chance to fully experience ancient Hopewell culture,” said Emmy Beach, a spokeswoman for the Ohio History Connection. The lease covers approximately 125 acres, 52 of which are enclosed by the Octagon Earthworks, according to the Moundbuilders Country Club’s website. The golf course would remain open on the part of the property that does not include the earthworks.

If Ohio History Connection and Moundbuilders are unable to reach an agreement, the history group says the Ohio attorney general will file for acquisition of the lease in Licking County Common Pleas Court.

“We have a public responsibility to preserve Ohio’s historical and cultural treasures, and we are acting on behalf of that obligation today,” Burt Logan, executive director of the Ohio History Connection, said in a written statement.

The Moundbuilders Country Club was “surprised and disappointed to learn that the OHC chose to take these discussions public and threaten to use the tactic of eminent domain to force us off the property,” the club told The Dispatch in an emailed response Tuesday.

The club noted that it has a lease with the OHC until 2078 and has been “a good steward of the property for over 100 years.”

“It is likely that without Moundbuilders maintaining this property, it would not exist in its current form today,” the club noted.

The nomination for World Heritage status, which would deem the area as culturally significant, covers the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Ross County, Fort Ancient State Memorial in Warren County and the Newark Earthworks State Memorial. The latter includes the Octagon, Great Circle and Wright earthworks in Licking County.

The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks would be Ohio’s first World Heritage site. There are more than 1,000 sites in 167 countries, 23 of them in the United States, including Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Everglades national parks, the Statue of Liberty, and closest to Ohio, the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.