After more than a decade, the ongoing legal battle over the Newark Earthworks’ Octagon Mounds has ended.
Moundbuilders Country Club and Ohio History Connection reached a settlement to buy out Moundbuilders’ lease on the Newark Earthworks’ Octagon Mounds — clearing the way for full public access to the property — the Ohio History Connection announced Thursday.
The settlement sum is confidential per the terms of the agreement, according representatives for both entities.
As a result of the case settling, the Octagon Earthworks will fully open to the public Jan. 1. after being leased by the country club since 1910. Moundbuilders intends to operate the private country club at 125 N. 33rd St., Newark, as usual until Dec. 31, Moundbuilders attorney Joe Fraley said.
“The New Year will bring a new era to the Octagon Earthworks and the Ohio History Connection,” Ohio History Connection Board President Charles Moses said in a news release. “We are excited the Octagon, which is one of the eight locations in the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, Ohio’s first and only UNESCO World Heritage Site, will be fully open to the citizens of Ohio — and the world.”
The golf course property includes earthworks built 2,000 years ago by ancient American Indian peoples which are part of a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage site that includes multiple earthworks in central and southern Ohio. The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks earned World Heritage status in September.
The Ohio History Connection, formerly the Ohio Historical Society, was deeded the Great Circle and Octagon Earthworks in 1933 and extended the country club’s in 1997 to 2078. Moundbuilders and the Ohio History Connection began negotiating in January 2013 to provide full public access to the site. In November 2018, the Ohio History Connection sued the country club, intending to buy back the lease on the property. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled in December 2022 that the Ohio History Connection could take the property back by eminent domain.
A jury trial in Licking County Common Pleas Court to determine the fair market value of the lease was scheduled for October, but it was delayed by an appeal of pretrial rulings made by Judge David Branstool and delayed again in May and July because of negotiations related to the settlement, according to the Ohio History Connection.
The settlement finally brings the legal battle to a close.
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