Note-Book No. 1 of the Kickapoo Club

In 1914, a group of passionate amateurs formed the Kickapoo Club and began systematically exploring the ancient earthworks of central Illinois. What emerges from these pages is not merely a catalog of artifacts, flint tools, pottery sherds, remnants of burial sites, but a vivid portrait of early American archaeology before it became a professional field. These are the field notes of men who walked the same ground where Mississippian peoples built the great Cahokia Mound a thousand years earlier, armed with shovels, curiosity, and a urgent sense that modernity was erasing something precious. The writing carries an earnestness that modern readers may find both endearing and instructive: there is no jargon, only the raw thrill of uncovering a stone pipe or documenting a previously unrecorded mound. For historians of archaeology, scholars of Native American history, or anyone drawn to the romance of amateur discovery, this notebook captures a pivotal moment when enthusiasts stood as the only guardians of the ancient past.