Our Arklahoma Heritage: The tragic conditions of the Great Depression led to the greatest archeological disaster in American history

The Spiro Mounds, along the Arkansas River, were a major center of the Mississippian culture from 800 to 1450 AD. This site, home to up to 10,000 Caddoan-speaking people, featured 12 earthen mounds, including the Craig Mound, a burial site known as the “Great Mortuary.”

Spiro was a trade hub, with artifacts like conch shells, copper, and beads showing connections across North America. Its mounds, aligned with solstices, held treasures like textiles, effigy pipes, and shell gorgets.

In 1914, University of Oklahoma professor Joseph Thoburn recognized the site’s importance, but the land, part of the Choctaw Nation allotment, was privately owned by Choctaw freedmen who initially banned digging.

By 1933, the Great Depression’s economic hardship led the owners to lease the land for $150 to the Pocola Mining Company, a group of six unemployed miners and locals.

The Pocola Mining Company, including key figures James Hudson, Luther Hudson, W.D. Edwards, J.G. McKenzie, E.O. Hale, and A.J. Smith, began looting Craig Mound in 1933. Driven by profit, they used dynamite and tunneled into the mound, uncovering a cedar-lined chamber packed with artifacts.

Over two years, they destroyed about one-third of the mound, scattering human remains and selling thousands of items--baskets, copper breastplates, and more--to collectors in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Some artifacts appeared in traveling exhibits, while others vanished into private hands, with many now in museums like the Smithsonian and the Louvre.

The looters showed no regard for the site’s cultural value, and their actions were legal at the time, as Oklahoma had no laws protecting archaeological sites.

Historical records confirm no criminal charges were filed against James Hudson, Luther Hudson, or their associates, as they operated under a valid lease.

This lack of legal oversight allowed the group to plunder with impunity, causing irreversible damage to the site’s historical context.

The looting outraged archaeologists and the public, prompting action by 1935. University of Oklahoma archaeologist Forrest E. Clements pushed for change, and the Oklahoma Legislature passed the state’s first antiquities laws, requiring excavation licenses through the university’s Department of Anthropology.

These laws halted the Pocola Mining Company’s operations in November 1935 but came too late to punish the looters or recover most artifacts.

The absence of earlier protections exposed a gap in safeguarding Native American sites, later addressed by federal laws like the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990.

The Pocola group faced no fines or imprisonment, as their actions predated these regulations.

Warren Clements

In 1936, the University of Oklahoma and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) began scientific excavations to save what was left. Led by Clements and later Samuel Dellinger of the University of Arkansas, the team recovered over 600 burials and thousands of artifacts from 1936 to 1941.

These efforts revealed Spiro’s role as a key Mississippian hub, despite the looting’s damage. The WPA program stopped in 1941 due to World War II.

The looting scattered Spiro’s artifacts, with many still missing or in private collections.

Descendants, including the Caddo Nation and Wichita and Affiliated Tribes, lost vital pieces of their heritage.

The Spiro Mounds Archaeological Center, opened in 1978, now educates visitors about the site’s history. Some artifacts have been repatriated, and exhibits like “Spiro and the Art of the Mississippian World” in 2021 have highlighted the site’s importance.

The actions of James Hudson, Luther Hudson, W.D. Edwards, J.G. McKenzie, E.O. Hale, and A.J. Smith left a permanent scar on Spiro Mounds.

Their unchecked looting underscores the need for strong laws to protect cultural sites, ensuring such losses are not repeated.