Jefferson County Indian Mounds & Trail Park
(General Atkinson Group)
Located at the end of Koshkonong Mounds Road southwest of Fort Atkinson, this group contains 11 mounds - all that's left of the
General Atkinson Group. In its heyday, this group is thought to have had 72 mounds. According to some accounts there might be two
dozen or so mounds still existing in some form on private properties. The property with these 11 best-preserved mounds was
purchased by Hugh Highsmith in 1991 and donated to Jefferson County to become a park and save the mounds from destruction.
I found the park in pretty good condition, with well-defined paths and good signage. Obviously, there was some work still going
on to further preserve the mounds - some trees were removed just recently that used to grow on the body of some mounds, and it
seemed the area was being restored to an oak savanna with the help of Ho-Chunk Nation.
One of the highlights of this site is a remnant of the old Indian trail cutting across the park right between the mounds.
Note: one shouldn't confuse this group with the Hoard Group located on the adjacent Koshkonong Mounds Country Club.
In 2019, more land was donated to the park by a well meaning family - and not an empty land, but the one containing more mounds
belonging to the same mound group. I revisited the park in 2021, and found out that the sign was installed to indicate the donation
(see below). However, the mounds on that parcel were not cleaned up or otherwise worked on yet, and not trails existed. Please also
see a PDF copy of the article in the local newspaper Daily Union, below.
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