Spock Memorial Dog Park was officially opened August 9th, 2019. The park was named after Scioto County Sheriff’s first K-9 dog Spock who was killed in the line of duty while pursuing a suspect with his handler, Alan Lewis. A memorial plaque at the park states, “On an early Tuesday morning, The Scioto County Sheriff’s Office K-9 Spock was shot and killed in the line of duty while in pursuit of an armed robber. End of Watch. February 15, 1994. May we honor Spock and all faithful K-9’s for their selfless service and sacrifice”.

In 2017, Shawnee State Sociology Professor Sean Dunne ran to represent the First Ward on Portsmouth City Council, and one part of his platform called for the development of the first dog park in Portsmouth. Others had previously advocated for creating a dog park in Portsmouth, including local businessman Ben Davis, and Community Development Director Tracy Schearer. Based upon those earlier attempts, it was clear that there was strong interest in having a dog park in the city. Working with students at Shawnee State University, Dunne circulated a petition amongst residents in the First Ward during his campaign asking the city to locate a dog park at an empty lot on Second Street adjacent to the city municipal building located on 728 Second Street.

The proposed site had long been associated with public education, having first served as the location of the Second Street Elementary School and then as Griffin Hall, the home of the Ohio University – Portsmouth Branch, which in time would become Shawnee State University. The successful petition campaign gathered signatures of many residents and helped demonstrate the demand for a dog park.

Following his election to council in November 2017, Portsmouth City Council was able to quickly move forward with plans for the park in 2018. This was made possible by the work of then County Engineer, and now City Engineer, Nathan Prosch, who provided a survey of the lot, as well as Tracy Shearer and Ben Davis, who created the design for the park. Following Shearer’s successful application for a Natureworks Grant through the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and an additional grant from the Scioto Foundation, the project was able to secure a majority of the funding required.

Portsmouth City Council allocated the remaining funding and development began in 2019. Since its opening, the park has been used by a number of Portsmouth residents and visitors. The park has also hosted several events, including a Paws n Treats Halloween Event, Doggies and DORA Day, and Barks, Beers and BBQ.

Sources:

"Portsmouth’s first off-leash dog park could open this spring," Portsmouth Daily Times (28 January 2019).

"Off-leash dog park may formally open mid-July," Portsmouth Daily Times (2 July 2019).

"Portsmouth gets new dog park named after K9 who died protecting partner," WQRC - Chanel 12 (9 August 2019).

"Spock Memorial Park attracts large crowd for grand opening," Portsmouth Daily Times (11 August 2019).

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Portsmouth's Mound Park lays claim to the lone remnant of the central complex of the Portsmouth Earthworks that once spread across the Ohio River over the modern communities of Portsmouth, Ohio and South Portsmouth and South Shore, Kentucky. The history of Mound Park spans over 2000 years of human activity at the mouth of the Scioto River.

All that survives today is a horseshoe-shaped mound, which was one of a pair that were the focal point of the earthworks complex. Caleb Atwater produced the first known sketch map of the earthworks in 1820, which caught the general scale and design of the complex, but omitted any reference to horseshoe-shaped mounds. In 1847, the archaeologists Ephraim Squier and Dr. Edwin Davis, working with Dr. Giles S.B. Hempstead, a local guide and expert on the mounds, recorded the first formal survey and description of the earthworks, which was published in their pioneering work Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. They recorded the earthworks as stretching along eight miles on either side of the Ohio River at the mouth of the Scioto River, with three groups visually connected by parallel alignments of earthen embankments.

Squier and Davis labeled these as Groups A, B, and C on their map, a naming convention that has been retained by archaeologists to the present. Group A is the rectangular works on the Kentucky side of the river on the first terrace above the floodplain, also known as the “Old Fort” by nineteenth century observers. Group B is the central complex on the high terrace on the Ohio side of the river, surrounding modern Mound Park. Group C is the concentric circle earthworks on the Kentucky side, east of the rectangular works, and on the first terrace over the floodplain (known as the "Temple Mound").

Squier and Davis made special note of a defining feature of this set of earthworks, which were the sets of parallel walls that apparently served to link the three groups. As recorded by Squier and Davis, the main element of Group B was a pair of horseshoe-shaped mounds situated within a semi-circular embankment. The horseshoe mounds opened to the south, and there were wide openings in the semi-circle to the east and southeast, with smaller openings at the west and northwest.

Two smaller U-shaped mounds were situated at the large openings, with their open ends oriented towards the openings of the large horseshoe mounds. A circular embankment was present directly east of the southern U-shaped mound. To the northeast of the eastern U-shaped mound, a short set of parallel embankments led northeast for a brief distance, with a mound at the northeast end of the southern embankment. Another mound was present to the northeast of the eastern horseshoe mound, outside the semi-circular embankment.

Further removed to the north, across a farm lane that is now 17th Street, was a circular embankment with an opening on the south side and centered on the center axis of the eastern horseshoe mound. Southeast of this circle was a long, singular, arcing embankment, leading southwest to the northwest set of parallel walls.

Another circular embankment was present to the west of the junction of the two sets of parallel embankments, with an opening to the east and on a central alignment that passes through the middle of the two horseshoe mounds and the eastern U-shaped mound.

A natural rise on the terrace is east of the horseshoe mounds, with one circular embankment south of the rise and another at the toe of the rise to the east. This second embankment enclosed a central mound and had an opening oriented to the east. Squier and Davis noted they thought the natural rise had been artificially modified, likely for use as an elevated platform overlooking the central earthworks.

The development of Portsmouth throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century removed nearly all visible traces of this complex earthworks. Today, only the horseshoe mound in Mound Park remains of the Portsmouth portion of the earthworks to remind us of this once-massive ritual center.

Adena and Hopewell Construction of the Mounds and Earthworks at the Mouth of the Scioto River

Earthworks served specific functions in Hopewell society, although this is the subject of robust debate amongst archaeologists. Most scholars tend to agree the general function of these constructions served as ritual centers for local, and perhaps regional, Hopewell communities, while there must have been variability in the ways that earthworks and mounds served local and regional communities. Earthwork construction by the Hopewell is linked to the earlier mound and simple geometric earthwork construction practiced by Early Woodland people (1000-100 BC), particularly the Adena cultural groups. Adena mounds range from low rises to large conical mounds highly visible on the landscape, often including multiple burials. Adena earthworks are usually circles with a single opening and an interior ditch, often with a central mound, and are often found in groups.

The archeaological record suggests that the Portsmouth Earthworks originated in the Early Woodland period as such a group of circles and mounds, then was expanded during the Middle Woodland by Hopewell people. The link between Adena and Hopewell cultures is not completely understood but it is probable that the Hopewell culture is an evolution of earlier Adena customs and practices.

The exact purpose of the Portsmouth Earthworks is unknown, but it is clear they were a major component of the ritual life of the Middle Woodland Hopewell Culture (ca. 100 BC-500 AD). The earthworks are the southernmost earthworks complex along the Scioto River. This complex likely had a special association with the junction of the Scioto River and Ohio River, perhaps serving as a gateway into the heart of the Ohio Hopewell homelands.

Like other earthworks complexes further up the Scioto River valley, the Portsmouth Earthworks probably served as a gathering place for both local families scattered across the landscape in small hamlets and for larger congregations of people from other river valleys across the region. Recent archaeological excavations at the park have recovered exotic materials from distant locations, including mica and crystal quartz from the North Carolina mountains and obsidian from the Yellowstone region, along with massive quantities of Ohio Flint Ridge chert.

Exotic material brought back from distant lands was used to make iconic works of Hopewell art, such as mica cutouts, huge obsidian blades, conch shell dippers and beads, copper panpipes and body ornaments, and necklaces of grizzly bear and fossil shark teeth. While none of these artifacts are currently known from Mound Park, it is likely that similar artifacts were made and used here.

Early Historical Occupation

Mound Park was originally part of the John Simpson farmstead, established sometime before 1819. John Simpson and his wife Mary Noel were among the first settlers of Portsmouth. They set up their farm just north of the large semi-circular embankments that enclosed the horseshoe mounds. As a carpenter, Simpson likely had a hand in the construction of many early buildings in Portsmouth. Later, in 1846, Azel Glover sold six acres of this parcel to the County Commissioners for use as an "Infirmary Farm."

In the 1860s and 1870s, the County Fair would be held on the site of the farm. In 1871, the Portsmouth Times reported on the preparations for the annual fair, noting that there were “several ancient mounds of peculiar formation” on the grounds. The main exhibition hall was built within the interior of one of the horseshoe mounds, and a racecourse was set up east of the mound, with a music stand on the rise where the WPA-built Shelter House is now located. A Dr. Straight was noted as the owner of the grounds at the time and had his residence there.

In 1871, the County Commissioners transferred the Infirmary Farm to the West Side, near Carey's Run, clearing the way for a new chapter in the site's history. 

Scioto County Children’s Home

The Scioto County Children’s Home was the county orphanage. The Portsmouth City Council set aside part of the City Hospital for the home in 1874.

And, in November of 1875, the Portsmouth Times noted that the old fairground buildings were being repaired for temporary use by the county's Children’s Home. The fairgrounds are shown south of Robinson Avenue on the 1889 map of Portsmouth, showing their movement away from Mound Park.

In November 1875, the orphanage was moved to the old infirmary farm and fairgrounds property on the current grounds of Mound Park. The old infirmary and fairground buildings were repaired for temporary use, while plans were launched to construct a new building to serve as Children’s Home.

Built atop the natural rise, overlooking the Horseshoe Mound, the new home burned in early 1876 before it was finished. After rebuilding, a three-story brick structure opened in 1877 in the same location. By 1892, seventy-five children occupied the Home, and the buildings on the grounds included the residence, a one-story schoolhouse, a laundry, a playhouse, two other outbuildings, and a windmill. All these buildings were in the southeast corner of Mound Park, where the 1930s shelter house and equipment shed are now present.

An early, undated nineteenth-century photograph of the home also shows what must be the small U-shaped mound that was on the property. Towards the end of the 1880s, city officials discussed the possibility of constructing an addition to alleviate crowding. By 1909, there was talk of relocating the facility, and with it was the first mention of converting the property to a city park, with the special notation to preserve the earthworks. Other options including selling the whole property for residential lots or building a new city hospital on the site.

Interestingly, a 1915 article discussing the disposition of the Children’s Home mentions “historical horse-shoe mounds” – so it is possible that the smaller U-shaped mound as seen in the undated photograph was still present. In 1917, the county commissioners resolved to divide the Children’s Home property into four lots and sell them to raise funds for a new home located in a more rural setting. However, this plan ran into resistance from residents of the Hilltop neighborhood and community groups who supported transforming the grounds into a public park.

The Labold family eventually purchased the entire plot and transferred the deed to the City of Portsmouth to explicitly transform the grounds into a new city park. Construction on a new Children’s Home near Wheelersburg began in 1920. The Children’s Home remained in this location until 1921, after which the location was converted to a public park, following the desire of many Portsmouth citizens.

The outbuildings of the Children’s Home began to be removed by 1922. For a time, various uses were considered for the residential building, such as conversion into a Community Club House for use by the various community organizations of Portsmouth. The Boy Scouts planned to convert the building to their local headquarters in 1923. In 1928, the Portsmouth Lions Club floated a proposal to demolish the old Children’s Home building and use the materials for a city museum on the same location, but it was razed later that year without any immediate rebuilding on its footprint.

Establishment of Mound Park

The park opened in 1921, serving mainly as an open green space at first. Although a nearby business named itself “Mound Park Pharmacy” the park was generally referred to as the Children’s Home Park in the early 1920s. Early improvements at the park include the construction of shelter houses and equipment sheds. In 1933, a shelter house was built on the old location of the Children’s Home, replaced in 1937 by a WPA-built stone veneer shelter house, and followed in 1938 by a stone workshop building. A stone “tool house” was noted as built near the roque court, itself installed in 1935.

The CCC sent men to assist with flood recovery in 1937 and they camped at Mound Park. In By 1939, a bandstand for concerts was built somewhere on the grounds, possibly within the horseshoe mound. In 1941, a 46-foot-tall flagpole was erected in the park just north of the shelter house.

Public Gatherings at Mound Park

Even when it was still the Children’s Home grounds, the park area was used by local groups for gatherings, such as picnics. In 1920, the Girl Scouts had a May Day festival attended by 150 girls from around Portsmouth. The Boy Scouts followed with their own Scout Show in 1923, which returned in 1924 and 1925 before moving to Labold Field in 1926 to take advantage of better facilities for handling crowds and events. However, the Boy Scouts still used Mound Park for smaller field events.

The Highland School inaugurated an annual Field Day at the park in 1921, with around 2,000 people in attendance. Portsmouth’s Community Chorus held free concerts in the park in the 1920s. The city held its own memorial service in Mound Park for the death of President Harding in 1923. During the warm weather months, many local churches held open-air services and picnics at the park and family reunions were a common occurrence.

In 1928, a band platform was erected in a shady section of the park for concerts; newspaper accounts suggest this platform may have been erected within the horseshoe mound, as concerts were held at the corner of Grant and Hutchins streets. However, a new band shell was proposed in 1942 to be erected between the mound and shelter house, which is another plausible location for the original bandstand.

Not all assemblies were benign. The Ku Klux Klan met for a rally and march through Portsmouth at Mound Park in late 1923; however, they were quickly arrested after refusing an order to disperse.

The park is still a focal point of outdoor activities for the surrounding neighborhood. Tennis, softball, and basketball games are played in the warmer months and the play structure is popular with local children. The 1930s shelter house is still used for gatherings and activities. Most recently, a park improvement project completed a paved walking path and the installation of several park lights to improve safety and access for the park. The ancient history of Mound Park is commemorated by a new monument and plaza northwest of the mound along Hutchins Street.

Sources:

Portsmouth Daily Times (1870-1941)

Evans, N. W. 1903 History of Scioto County. Self-published, Portsmouth, Ohio.

Holt, R. B. 1878 The Earthworks at Portsmouth, Ohio, U.S. The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 7:132–137.

Inter-State Publishing Company 1884 History of Lower Scioto Valley, Ohio. Inter-State Publishing Company, Chicago.

Portsmouth Public Library 2019b Henry A. Lorberg Telegram, 1928. Local History Digital Collection, https://www.yourppl.org/history/items/show/2093, accessed June 7, 2019.

Squier, E. G., and E. H. Davis 1847 Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

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In 1938, during the North-West Territory sesquicentennial celebration, Portsmouth residents put on a "gigantic parade" through the city, carrying a large stone at the "head of the procession." The City Recreation Department placed the stone "in concrete at the base of the flag pole" and local dignitaries dedicated the new city park, which they named Alexandria Point. Located just outside the city's flood wall, the park provides visitors with a scenic view of the modern-day confluence of the Ohio and Scioto Rivers.

The stone, with its 1802 inscription, explained the Daily Times, had recently been recovered from the Westside bottoms of the Scioto River. Local historian Alfred Fagan believed it to have originated as a cornerstone from the now abandoned village of Alexandria, which area residents and the history books remembered as the first American settlement at the mouth of the Scioto.

The Alexandria Stone makes for an odd historical marker, as the date with which it is inscribed has no direct connection to anniversary of the adoption of the North-West Ordinance, which was being celebrated in 1938. Nor does it refer to the date of Alexandria's founding, which was first settled in 1796. And, lastly, it has been removed from its original historic location. It is, however, all that visibly remains of abandoned Alexandria.

The stone's original inscription may have had included the initials, "E. L." inscribed over the date, 1802. It's possible the letters represented the initials of Elias Langham, who officially surveyed and platted the village in 1799. Langham did own at least one lot in Alexandria, where he built a residence, but it does not appear he ever lived there for any extended period of time. In short, whether the Alexandria Stone came from Langham's house, we will never know.

The stone was recovered in 1931 by Squire Oscar Foster, who acquired it from a family living near the mouth of Carey's Run, not far from where Alexandria had once been located. "He chanced upon it at the home of a West Side family who were using it as an outdoor step and who were not aware of its historical significance." Foster then gave the stone to Alfred Fagan, whom the Portsmouth Daily Times described as "the city's most ardent and knowledgeable historian" and a descendant of Judge John Collins, one of the first settlers of Alexandria. Thus, Fagan, the 80-year old great-great grandson of Collins, is the one who arranged to donate the stone to the City Recreation Department for its installation in Alexandria Point Park.

Interestingly, Robert Dafford's mural of Alexandria depicts a pioneer river town, with numerous stone houses. There were, in fact, very few such structures. Perhaps one could argue that the vision of Alexandria found on the Portsmouth flood wall reflects the aspirations of Alexandria's founders more than the reality of the pioneer settlement. Extent records suggest that the village had far more log cabins and framed houses than those made of cut stone. This, it should be noted, however, only makes the Alexandria Stone at Alexandria Point that much more rare and historically significant.

Sources:

Barbara Keyser Gargiulo, editor, "Early Reminiscences of Portsmouth," in Scioto County, Ohio Newspaper Abstracts and Historical Reminiscences, 1866-1869 (Milford, Ohio: Little Miami Publishing Co., 2006).

"Old Stone Is Landmark for New City Park," Portsmouth Times (2 November 1939).

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The distinctive A-frame construction of the Nature Center dates to circa 1969, when it was built for a privately owned cabin rental complex, known as the High Meadow, which was briefly located on the current site of the Shawnee Park Lodge.

The High Meadow A-Frames cost $75 a week to rent, and included a canoe, which was tied up on the shore of the then new Turkey Creek Lake. After the State of Ohio purchased the location, the cabin was relocated next to the Turkey Creek Lake Spillway and converted into a Nature Center.

In 2007, Shawnee State Park relocated and restored a log cabin, which had been originally constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s. The cabin had been built as part of CCC Camp Shawnee No. 1. and was located near Pond Lick Lake in the Shawnee State Forest.

CCC work within the forest included the removal of deadened American Chestnut, which had succumbed to an Asian blight in the 1920s. Using this salvaged timber, the CCC built a number of log structures, such as this cabin, which is a perfect example of what scholars have called CCC "parkitecture," the distinctive rustic construction style used in CCC park improvements across the nation.

Today, it serves as an interpretive center on the history of the park and forest. Visitors can learn how the Shawnee once called these hills home, when the game was thick and Europeans were few and far between. Following American settlement, which led to deforestation and the extirpation of buffalo, deer, and black bear, a Conservation Movement would give birth to Ohio's Roosevelt Game Preserve and Shawnee State Forest in the 1920s. And, from these beginnings, with the help of Franklin D. Roosevelt's CCC, would develop what is today Shawnee State Park.

Today the Nature Center and CCC Cabin Museum are popular attractions with area residents and visitors from throughout the tri-state region of Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Here, park visitors can learn about native and invasive plant and animal species, which are found within the park and larger Shawnee State Forest. The Center and the Park Naturalist, along with numerous volunteers, carry on the tradition of free educational nature programing, which dates back to the Park’s origins in the Roosevelt Game Preserve, which kept a “zoo” of forest animals in the 1920s and 30s.

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The Theodore Roosevelt Preserve was dedicated at 3pm on December 5th, 1922, by Governor Harry L. Davis. It began with 20,000 acres as a "game and reforestation preserve." At the time of its dedication, the preserve had about 2,000 ring-necked pheasants and several hundred wild turkeys, with plans to add "deer, bear, partridges, and dozens of other kinds of wild game."

Of the original 20,000 acres, 15,000 was purchased through funds contributed via hunting license fees. An additional 5,000 acres was purchased by the state agricultural extension division, "specifically for reforestation, however the entire tract" according to Governor Davis was "to be used jointly for both purposes." The state paid on average $5 per acre.

Davis told the gathered crowd, "Ohio's completion of this work for the re-establishment of wild life and for protection and replenishment of natural resources is being watched throughout the country, as ours is of the first and certainly one of the largest state enterprises of this kind in America. The state plans a gradual extension of the scope of these activities until every acre of land in the state that is now lying waste will be contributing to our food supply and to the production of timber. From every standpoint this utilization of land … is an investment which will bring its returns a thousand fold to us and succeeding generations."

Some in the press had called for the new preserve to be named for Governor Davis, himself, for his role in supporting its creation. One writer of a letter to the editor of the Portsmouth Times called for the preserve to be named for the Shawnee Indian nation, a suggestion that may have eventually led to the naming of the state forest lands that were adjacent to the preserve and came to encompass it in the early 1950s. But, Governor Davis believed that it should be named for the father of the American conservation movement.

Davis told the assembled crowd, many of whom had traveled by automobile from Portsmouth: "With this event, Ohio launches upon a definite program for the conservation of its natural resources. It is a purpose that at once recalls the greatest figure in modern history - great sportsman and outdoor enthusiast, and bitterest foe of nature's despoilers - who began and waged the national fight for conservation of natural resources - Theodore Roosevelt. Because of this close association of what was cherished by Roosevelt with what we are trying to carry out, I am convinced, Roosevelt, if alive today, would be pleased to see this work go forward and to have his name chosen to honor this great state enterprise."

In 1934, during the Great Depression, 400 acres of the Roosevelt Preserve were set aside for the creation of a state park, originally known as the Roosevelt State Park. The Civilian Conservation Corps, a jobs program for unemployed young men and World War I veterans, would build the original infrastructure of the park and forest. In time the park's name would be changed to Portsmouth State Park, before finally taking the name Shawnee State Park in the early 1970s.

This memorial, which includes the likeness of both Roosevelt and Davis, was originally located near the entrance to the Preserve's Headquarters at the intersection of Forest Road 1 and State Route 125. At some point, after the development of the state park, when the public visitation shifted from the preserve to Roosevelt Lake and its campgrounds, the bronze plaque was placed in storage, until it was forgotten. Then, in the 1990s, Park Manager Kevin Bradbury discovered it in a maintenance shed. Thanks to Bradbury's efforts, the original memorial plaque was given a new home on the shores of Roosevelt Lake, near the Park Campgrounds, where visitors can now easily appreciate its words.

In August 2022, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Roosevelt Game Preserve with the erection of a new historical marker. The ceremony included a dedication speech by Mary Mertz, the Director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

Mertz told a gathered crowd of some one hundred people:

"After World War II, state lawmakers consolidated the assortment of state lands to provide consistent management and administration of public lands and facilities. Ohio’s modern system of state parks was officially formed 73 years ago - in 1949 when the Ohio Department of Natural Resources was created. Since then, ODNR has been proud to manage lands from Lake Erie to the Ohio River – and everywhere in between. And today, 100 years later, through careful conservation efforts and the support of sportsmen and women, Ohio is a state rich in wildlife.

"Sportsmen and women and people who love outdoor recreation are the catalysts that drive conservation in Ohio and across the nation – so thank you for your work, thank you for being here, and thank you for your commitment to protecting our natural resources!

"But for us at ODNR, it’s not just about the land – it’s about showing the connection between our natural world and people and the historic events that brought to us to where we are today. Before the mountain biking trails and campsites, there were people and events that breathed life into the beautiful places across the Buckeye State."

The words of Director Mertz reminds us that our state parks and forests are rich not only in natural beauty and biodiversity, but also in human history, a history that connects Shawnee State Park and the old Roosevelt Game Preserve to the original conservation movement embodied by the life and legacy of President Theodore Roosevelt.

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