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Indian Mounds Near East Peoria to be Preserved With State Funds
Posted by Ramona Cardon to Councilfire
From http://www.IMDiversity.com
by AP, The Associated Press
East Peoria, Ill. (AP) _ The state plans to spend nearly $1 million to
preserve a series of American Indian mounds that have remained a secret
from the general public since their discovery about 70 years ago.
The mounds are located on 122 acres of Illinois River bluff land north
of the U.S. 150 bridge that connects East Peoria and Peoria _ a site
known as the Fey Property.
Jim Coutts, former director of the Fondulac Park District, said the
mounds are thousands of years old, dating from the Middle Mississippian
Native American culture.
Relatively few people have known of the existence of the mounds, said
Duane Esary, assistant curator of anthropology at the Illinois State
Museum Dickson Mounds Branch in Lewistown.
"To my knowledge, they've never been excavated," Esary said.
Protection, and perhaps much more, now will come with the expected
purchase of the Fey site by the park district with up to $815,000 from
the Illinois Open Lands Trust Fund. The funding was authorized Jan. 7 by
former Gov. George Ryan, acting on a request from state Rep. Ricca
Slone, D-Peoria Heights.
Another $325,000 from the fund also may come through a request submitted
by state Sen. George Shadid, D-Edwards. If awarded, it could be used to
buy the former WIRL-AM radio station office just east of the Fey
Property, said Mick Rosendahl, senior grant administrator for the
Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
That 7,000-square-foot building could be used to house a museum of river
bluff land history and archeology.
The park district applied for the Open Land Trust Fund grant to purchase
the Fey Property more than a year ago. Ryan created the four-year
program with $160 million worth of available grants shortly after his
term began, Slone said.
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Reprinted under the Fair Use Law: Doctrine of international
copyright law.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
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