Page 145 - Knighted_2018

60 burials and hundreds of sacred objects, most of them representing Mississippian-era culture.56
Aside from a handful of graduate students working as assistants to Kelly, the majority of workers
at the excavation were ordinary men looking for work in a depressed economy. On more than
one occasion Kelly worried about men coming to work weighing 140 pounds and clocking out
weighing over 180 pounds, the excess weight due to all of the artifacts smuggled out almost
daily.57, 58 In 1936 President Roosevelt signed an executive order which created the Ocmulgee
National Monument, and oversight of the archaeological exploration of the site transferred from
the Smithsonian Institute to the Park Service. Under the NPS, the excavation ballooned into the
largest archaeological project in Georgia history, with more than 700 workers from the Civilian
Conservation Corps (CCC). Excavations continued until funding dried up in 1941. Between the
Smithsonian and Park Service digs, more than 2.5 million artifacts were removed from the soil at
Ocmulgee, of which more than half remain uncatalogued and in storage with either the NPS or
the Smithsonian Institute.59

Although they have been separated from Ocmulgee for over 170 years, time has not
dimmed the Muscogee (Creek) Nation's memories of this sacred place. The Ocmulgee Plateau
holds a special place in Muscogee culture. The mounds of Middle Georgia are significant to both
their ancient and modern history, as the place where their ancestors settled, lived, and died, as
well as the place where their contemporary society took shape.60 To this day, members of the
Creek Nation who make the journey to Macon from Oklahoma, still feel a sense of awe when
visiting Ocmulgee National Monument.61 Although many recorded versions of Creek origin

56 Butler, interview by author, Macon, February 2, 2018.
57 Davis, interview by author, February 1, 2018.
58 As recently as the late '90s family members of deceased CWA and WPA era workers have returned ceremonial

objects to the NPS that they found hidden among their loved one's possessions.
59 Davis, interview by author, February 1, 2018.
60 Spain, interview by author, February 2, 2018.
61 Corain Lowe, interview by author, February 2, 2018.

140