History beneath our feet at Knox

twana.atkinson@knox.army.mil

Thousands of people live on, work or train at, visit, or simply pass through Fort Knox daily without being aware that they are at one of the largest archaeological sites in Kentucky.

Criss Helmkamp, a Ph.D and Fort Knox's archaeologist, said artifacts have been found on post that date back more than 8,000 years.

Helmkamp came to Fort Knox two years ago after learning that the post archeologist position was open, and having researched the cultural resouces that had been found on post before.

"I taught at Purdue University, and decided that I wanted to serve my country a little more directly," said Helmkamp.

During his two years at Knox, the post has uncovered several archaeological sites.

One of the more important is at the Camp Carlson recreation area. Under the campgrounds lies the remains of the earliest and most important towns in this area, along with the vestiges of American Indian campsites occupied thousands of years ago.

While working on construction to revamp the campground, officials came upon artifacts such as dishes from the old mills in the former town of Grahamton, and ancient American Indian tools.

Grahamton was a mill town that existed from 1837 to 1940.

The findings at the Camp Carlson site may be submitted as a National Historical Register site by state officials, according to Helmkamp.

Those include:

* Some 780 identified archaeological sites on just one-third of the post, with at least 2,000 suspected sites post-wide.

* There are 191 buildings that require ‘‘special administration.''

* Knox contains 118 cemeteries with a cumulative total of some 4,000 grave sites. The smallest cemetery contains one grave. The Post Cemetery and St. Patrick's cemetery are the largest.

* The Louisville & Nashville Turnpike offers three 19th century stone bridges.

* The Main Post Chapel, another historic site, was used as a church by the townspeople of Stithton, the town that stood at the site of today's Stithton traffic circle from 1899 to 1920.

* The Tioga Trail was an old wagon trail that led to a hotel and resort at Tioga Falls.

There are other sites on post that are potentially eligible to be protected by federal law too, according to Helmpkamp.

That includes the LST building, used during WWII to test experimental designs for the landing ship tank vessels that carried troops to attack beachheads.

But not every archeological find is valuable.

"A vast majority of the artifacts that we find are not significant," said Helmkamp. "Our first concern isn't to preserve theses cultural resources, but to mange them in a way that supports the training mission."