Collinsville: Indian Mounds, Wrestling Singlets, and Ghosts

When I was growing up in Rock Island, we visited St. Louis quite often, and Carbondale, in the southern part of the state, once or twice, and on the way there or back we sometimes stopped  Collinsville, Illinois, to see the Cahokia Indian Mounds.

The site of an ancient city built by the Mississippian Culture between 600 and 1200 AD.   At its height it had a population of 40,000, bigger than London at the time, with 120 enormous earthen mounds used for burials, religious rites, and lookouts.

We don't know much about the Mississippians.  They left no written records.  But we know that they occupied all of the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys, and traded from as far south as the Gulf of Mexico.

And that they practiced human sacrifices, sometimes decapitating their victims, sometimes burying them alive.





What's going on here?

In those days many people had trouble believing that "backwards" Native Americans built such an advanced civilization, so there was a lot of speculation about who actually lived in Cahokia:  ancient Egyptians? Vikings?  Space aliens?  Refugees from Atlantis?

The mounds were billed as spooky "Mounds of Mystery" rather than as an archaeological site.

And there were other scary things in Collinsville:

1. The Miner's Institute, a public hall for coal miners, with a library and a theater. For 100 years, plays, concerts, conventions, and high school graduations were held there.  It finally closed in 2008.

Over the door, there is a sculpture of two miners holding a medallion.  According to urban legend, they were twin brothers, competing over a girl or over ownership of the institute. One killed the other in a fit of rage, and then committed suicide in remorse.

Their ghosts haunt the theater to this day, slamming doors, dropping things, turning the lights on and off, and intervening when couples get too intimate by tapping their shoulders or roughly shoving them apart.

It's all very heteronormative. I prefer to think of them competing over a guy, and intervening when hetero couples get too intimate because they don't care for that boy-girl stuff.

2. The Gates to Hell, old railroad underpasses off Lebanon Road.  If you go through all seven of them in order, the gates will open.  Of course, the residents of Hell don't want you there, so they will send demonic beings to stand in your way and devil dogs to chase you.

Collinsville is also known for the world's largest bottle of ketchup, for being the horseradish capital of the world, and for its annual Italian Festival, with bocci ball, grape stomping contests, and pasta eating contests.





I found some beefcake at Collinsville High, where the wrestling singlets are impressive.
















Not as impressive as the Mississippian sculpture, but impressive.



















So are the track uniforms.

















  Nearby towns have athletes who are similarly gifted.  Those mounds must have mystical powers after all.