Citico Town and Mound was a major center of the Coosa confederacy, at the mouth of Citico Creek in the area of what is now

Chattanooga, Tennessee Chattanooga ( ) is a city in Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located along the Tennessee River and borders Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the south. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, it is Tennessee ...

. It was second in size to Etowah at the time of

Hernando de Soto Hernando de Soto (; ; 1497 – 21 May 1542) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who was involved in expeditions in Nicaragua and the Yucatan Peninsula. He played an important role in Francisco Pizarro's conquest of the Inca Empire in Peru, ...

's march through the area in 1540 CE. In archaeological terms it is considered as part of the '

Dallas phase The Dallas phase (c. 1300–1600 CE) is an archaeological phase, within the Mississippian III period, in the South Appalachian Geologic province in North America.Sullivan and Prezzano 281 Geography Dallas peoples moved into what is now southwest ...

' of

Mississippian Mississippian may refer to: * Mississippian (geology), a subperiod of the Carboniferous period in the geologic timescale, roughly 360 to 325 million years ago * Mississippian cultures, a network of precontact cultures across the midwest and Easte ...

Muscogee The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek or just Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language; English: ), are a group of related Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands Here they waged war again ...

culture, c. 1300–1600 CE. For the

muskogean Muskogean ( ; also Muskhogean) is a language family spoken in the Southeastern United States. Members of the family are Indigenous Languages of the Americas. Typologically, Muskogean languages are highly synthetic and agglutinative. One docume ...

version and origin of the name, see " Satapo." Isaac H. Bonsall photographed the site during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

era in 1864 when it was part of a garden for convalescent Union soldiers. Citico mound was the center of Citico town, and survived essentially intact up to the

US Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded f ...

when it was dug into and used to store gunpowder. It was partially excavated by

Clarence Bloomfield Moore Clarence Bloomfield Moore (January 14, 1852 – March 24, 1936), more commonly known as C.B. Moore, was an American archaeologist and writer. He studied and excavated Native American sites in the Southeastern United States. Early life and educa ...

in 1914 and subsequently destroyed in 1915 to create a road extending east upriver from downtown

Chattanooga Chattanooga ( ) is a city in Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located along the Tennessee River and borders Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the south. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, it is Tennessee ...

. The

Tennessee Division of Archaeology The Tennessee Division of Archaeology (TDOA) is a division of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation responsible for managing prehistoric archaeological sites on lands owned by the U.S. state of Tennessee, conducting archaeologi ...

designates the site as "40HA65". The site is scheduled for destruction in 2016–17 as part of the City of

- Hamilton County Cannon brownfield development, Central Avenue extension through Lincoln Park and north across Citico Creek to Riverside Drive, and private college-student housing development.

Notes

References

*Evans, E. Raymond & Smith, Gerald, ''Test Excavations at Citico (40HA65) Hamilton County, Tennessee'' 1988 *Moore, Clarence B., ''The Tennessee, Green, and Lower Ohio River Expeditions of Clarence Bloomfield Moore''. Richard Polhemus, ed., University of Alabama Press 2002 *Hatch, James W., "The Citico Site (40HA65): A Synthesis", 'Tennessee Anthropologist', journal of the Tennessee Anthropological Association, 1:2 Fall 1976 * Honerkamp, Nicholas, Beth Fowler, Tracy Little, Robby Mantooth, "An archaeological Survey of the Citico Site (40HA65), Chattanooga, Tennessee"; Research Contributions 2, Jeffrey L. Brown Institute of Archaeology, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, December 1989 {{coord missing, Tennessee Archaeological sites in Tennessee South Appalachian Mississippian culture Buildings and structures in Chattanooga, Tennessee History of Chattanooga, Tennessee Geography of Chattanooga, Tennessee