DES MOINES
Illustrated Souvenir Album (1895)
MOUNDS OF ANTIQUITY
There were not wanting evidences of an earlier race than the Indians having once occupied the original site of Fort Des Moines. The Mound Builders of the Mississippi Valley, who once constituted a populous and powerful nation, had left traces of their existence in the fifteen mounds discovered in the vicinity of the Fort. One of these ancient relics stood near the corner of Fourth and Walnut streets, where Moore's old Opera House (later known as Wonderland) now stands. On the summit of this mound W. W. Moore erected his first residence. Another mound stood on the site of the Court House, and others were scattered about in different localities. From the bones exhumed on excavating them, they are presumed to have been the "whitened sepulchers" of a pre-historic race. They were at least semi-civilized, as many of their inventions and appliances for the uses of society plainly testify.
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