Mantle Rock Archeological District

The story

Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com

The Mantle Rock Archeological District is an archeological district near Smithland, in Livingston County, Kentucky, along KY 133, covering 215 acres. It was listed in the National Register in 2004, part of the Cherokee Trail of Tears multiple property submission.

Why it's listed

It was listed under criteria A and D, with local significance in Native American ethnic heritage and prehistoric archeology. Its period of significance runs from 1838 to 1839, the years Cherokee detachments used the site as a campsite during the Trail of Tears.

Physical character

Traces of the old Salem-Golconda Road survive as a roadbed ten to twelve feet wide with embankments up to five feet high, abandoned in the 1930s when State Route 133 replaced it. The wooded tract also includes hardwood forest, springs, a sandstone arch, a dirt trail and a state historic marker.

Historical context

The Treaty of New Echota was signed in 1835. Cherokee people were rounded up by soldiers and militia in May 1838, and detachments began their march that October, reaching the Ohio River by mid-November. Peter Hildebrand's detachment camped at Mantle Rock for two weeks in December 1838 before crossing the Ohio River in the second week of January 1839. In 1844 the Trustees of Bullitt Academy sold the property to Ephriam Davis, and in 2001 Reynolds Metal Company conveyed it to the Kentucky Nature Conservancy.