Red Wing, Goodhue County, Minnesota
Figure 1. T.H. Lewis' 1885 surveying map of the Cannon River Drive Mounds superimposed on an aerial photo.
Lewis surveyed this mound group on September 2, 1885. He wrote:
"Mounds near Spring Creek... group of 7 mounds, on a terrace about 15 ft. above a swamp. One is broad elongated and one is an effigy. The latter stands in the line of the series and is apparently of the same date and origin. The animal effigy has a length of about 145 ft and average height of 1 1/2 ft.""
The exact position of this group is uncertain since Lewis' drawing doesn't contain any notable landmarks. The group's position could have been anywhere along the terrace edge between the two sides of the picture. The animal seems to be headed in the direction of the flow of the Cannon River, and its legs are on the waterway side.
This area also contains several effigy-like mounds that are like nothing built by the Effigy Mound Culture, and may be expressions of a later Minnesota art form. About a mile west of the Cannon River Drive mounds was the Silvernale Site mound group. One of the mounds mapped by Lewis at Silvernale had the shape of a spear head (Figure 3A). Another group nearby Silvernale contained one mound shaped like the stone portion of a traditional pipe, and two other mounds (Figue 3B) of unidentifiable shape. A third group of unusual mounds was located about a mile southwest of the Cannon River Drive group and was the topic of Lewis' 1887 article "Snake and Snake-like Mounds in Minnesota".
