Inside the turf war between Ohio golf club and Native American tribes

• Ohio History Connection is locked in a legal battle with the country club
• The club has constructed a golf course around the prehistoric mounds 

An Ohio history society is locked in a legal battle with a country golf club over prehistoric Native American earth mounds culturally ‘equivalent to Stonehenge’. 

Ohio History Connection (OHC) wants to re-open the UNESCO World Heritage Octagon Earthworks to the public, but the site is leased to Moundbuilders Country Club who have run a golf course on the prehistoric mounds for 114 years. 

The two groups cannot agree on a fair price to end the lease as the club says ‘the OHC either does not have or does not want to spend enough money to allow the club to move to another location’, leading to a lengthy ongoing court battle. 

The 50-acre group of sacred mounds were built between 1 and 400AD as ‘part cathedral, part cemetery and part astronomical observatory’ and have ‘historical and archeological significance equivalent to Machu Picchu.’

John Low, a citizen of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians told DailyMail.com: ‘It would be like having a mini golf course inside Stonehenge, it just doesn’t work.’ 

But the beloved community club told DailyMail.com that they have provided ‘care and protection’ for the mounds and without sufficient payment they will be forced to close. 

The club – which serves as a social hub for the community – constructed a golf course around the mounds in the early 1900s, drawing in thousands of visitors over the decades to play the unusual holes. 

Golfers are fond of the monuments, nicknaming the largest ‘Big Chief’. 

A 1930 article in Golf Illustrated said: ‘The ancient Moundbuilders unwittingly left behind the setting for as strange and sporty a golf course as ever felt the blow of a niblick.’ 

But Native American representatives have long been vocal in their disapproval of the club, comparing it to putting a ‘country club on the Acropolis’. 

The mounds were painstakingly built with rudimentary tools approximately 2,000 years ago, to mark and measure the passage of the sun and the moon. 

Low said: ‘To people of Ohio River Valley and Great Lakes region who are most connected as descendants to the builders, it’s a place of pride that deserves protection.

‘It’s a place of UNESCO World Heritage inscription we want to share with the world. We can’t celebrate it with a golf course on top of it.’

The OHC told DailyMail.com that by ending the lease and resuming control of the site they want to ‘operate, protect, maintain, restore and share access to this Indigenous wonder.’

Currently they say they only have full access to the mounds four or five days a year. 

In a 2022 legal document, the OHC claimed ‘the country club had increasingly denied access to the public over the last 15 to 20 years, either directly or indirectly by rendering access impossible through inconveniently timed maintenance activities.’

But the club denies this and says they have maintained and protected the mounds for 114 years, and say if they are forced off the land without suitable compensation they will be forced to shut down. 

President of the club’s board of trustees David Kratoville told DailyMail.com that they don’t want to leave the site but they ‘would look to do so upon receiving a payment that would allow it to recreate its business on another site.’

The club – where membership starts around $1,000 a year – has a Williamsburg-looking brick clubhouse, a swimming pool and an 18-hole course.

The club is ‘woven into the local economy’, Kratoville said, and shutting down ‘would be felt in a variety of employment, social, economic, and community ways.’

He said: ‘The club is home for some local high school golf teams. The summer swim club is open to non-member kids of all ages. 

‘It is the only family social club within about 20 miles.’ 

Five years ago, Moundbuilders asked for $12 million for the facility saying it would take that to pay off its debt and create another golf country club of the same value.

But after an independent appraisal at the time, the OHC offered $800,000. 

Now the ongoing court battle and upcoming jury trial will determine the value of the lease and the size of the payment to the club. 

The OHC says they are committed to enabling ‘full public access to the Octagon Earthworks while ensuring the country club receives fair market value for the lease’. 

But Kratoville told Daily Mail.com: ‘There is no exact (single) dollar amount required as Moundbuilders doesn’t know where it will move to if it moves. 

‘Each potential new location site has different cost elements that need to be considered. It’s not a one size fits all situation.’

He added: ‘The amount paid will determine whether Moundbuilders can relocate or whether it ceases to exist after 114 years as a community institution.’