The auction was held to sell 20 properties and settle the estate of the late Hamilton dermatologist Dr. Louis Luke Barich. Although Barich wanted the earthworks to be preserved, that was not a part of his will, and the land was auctioned off to settle his estate.
The 2,000 year-old “Fortified Hill Works” in Ross Twp. first were surveyed in 1836 by James McBride, who also was Hamilton’s first mayor. They were considered so significant that they were included in the first publication by the Smithsonian Institution, “Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley,” written in 1847 by Ephraim Squire and Edwin Davis. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
Nanci Lanni, the daughter of the late Harry Wilks, who founded Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park and was a longtime friend of Barich, represented a local coalition that successfully bid on the properties containing the earthworks. Lanni said just after the auction last year that her father and Barich had talked about making Fortified Hill part of Pyramid Hill.
“Many earthworks have been destroyed by farming and development,” Lanni said in September 2019. “We wanted to be able to preserve it. Now we’re making both dreams a reality to keep Fortified Hill for future generations.”
The earthworks are large, occupying almost 17 acres, and seem to have been used for ceremonial purposes. But with trees, and invasive-species honeysuckle surrounding them, they were difficult to see. The preservation will be managed by the Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park & Museum.
Jennifer Aultman, Ohio History Connection’s world heritage director, has estimated the state’s several locations, including Fort Ancient State Memorial east of Lebanon, are the country’s next likely sites to be ready for nomination, with that nomination likely happening in 2023.
Locations near Chillicothe that draw numerous tourists, including Hopeton Earthworks National Historical Park and Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, are among them. Officials in Butler County hope the Fortified Hil earthworks also will draw some of those tourists, as well as others.
There used to be many such earthworks in this area, including in Butler County, said Kathy Creighton, executive director of the Butler County Historical Society. But many were plowed under for farmland or buried under housing developments.
A state historical marker was erected on her property in Hanover Twp. last year commemorating such earthworks, as well as an early local pioneer family.
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