Nine months after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that a country club must sell its lease to the state historical society that owns the land containing Native American earthworks, golfers are still pushing carts over the levees and they hit them with 3 irons.
But now these octagon earthworks, which Native Americans built some 2,000 years ago as a means of tracking the movement of the sun and moon through the heavens, have been officially named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
“Inscription on the World Heritage List will bring international attention to these treasures that have long been known to Ohioans,” said Megan Wood, the executive director and CEO of the Ohio History Connection, which partnered with the National Parks and the Department of the Interior for the Recognized combination of eight earthworks in central Ohio.
These sites, collectively known as the Hopewell Earthworks, include the Octagon Earthworks in Newark, which were created one basket of earth at a time with pointed sticks and hoes.
The designation, announced Tuesday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, places the earthworks among just over 1,000 world heritage sites. There are only 25 in the United States, including the Grand Canyon, Independence Hall, and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
“The historical, archaeological and astronomical significance of the Octagon Earthworks is arguably on par with Stonehenge or Machu Picchu,” Justice Michael P. Donnelly wrote in the Ohio Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of the state historical society, which upheld two decisions by lower courts.
The recognition comes after a years-long battle between the Moundbuilders Country Club, which had leased the land since 1910 and operated a private golf course atop the earthworks, and the Ohio History Connection, which owns the site and plans to open as a public park.
History Connection sued the country club in 2018 in an attempt to obtain the lease, which runs until 2078. Federal officials had told the historical society that securing World Heritage designation, which brings international recognition and legal protection, would be impossible without full public access to the site.
The association had argued that the termination of the lease was not necessary to establish a public use and had argued that it had maintained and cared for the mounds. Its members, club board chairman David Kratoville told the New York Times in 2021, “go out for a day and clean up sand traps and plant flowers.”
After the Ohio Supreme Court’s ruling last year, the country club filed a motion for reconsideration that was quickly denied.
Kratoville wrote in an email Tuesday that the country club had been good stewards of the Octagon Earthworks and welcomed their recognition as a World Heritage Site.
“All we’ve ever asked for through this long-term situation is to be fairly compensated, thereby allowing our business to continue somewhere else for our members, our community and the 100 or so people we employ,” Kratoville said.
The club had said they were willing to move before the lease expired, but the parties are millions of dollars apart in their negotiations. The value of the lease will now be determined in a jury trial set to begin on October 17.
