Mound still considered for landmark, By LISA KACZKE, Staff Writer

Miscommunication caused confusion

Confusion over ownership of Grand Mound was a result of a miscommunication between agencies, according to state and federal officials.
A rumor that the Minnesota Historical Society might transfer the property made its way to the National Park Service’s office in Washington, D.C., said Bill Keyes, of MHS’s Historic Sites and Museums Division.
As a result of that rumor, a letter was sent to the Koochiching County Board from the U.S. Department of the Interior stating that until ownership is determined, “we will no longer actively work on a National Historic Landmark nomination for Grand Mound.”
But Keyes clarified that Grand Mound is owned by MHS.
“There is no question of ownership,” Keyes said.
MHS and northern Minnesota Indian tribes have discussed the possibility of transferring ownership of the property in the last five years, but talks have not be held recently, Keyes said.
A letter to the Koochiching County Board is being drafted that is meant to clarify the situation, said Virgil Noble, of NPS’s Midwest Region office.
Commissioner Mike Hanson said when the county board received the letter from the U.S. Department of the Interior, he thought “where’s there’s smoke, there’s fire” and there was more to the story.
Hanson said that a proposal to reopen Grand Mound in the future is being formed.
Grand Mound was closed by MHS in 2003 after MHS lost 25 percent of its funding.
The nomination for national landmark status is for the part of the 67-acres that the 2,200-year-old burial mounds are actually located on and not the entire 67 acres, Keyes said. The mounds are located 17 miles west of International Falls.
NPS’s Washington, D.C. office was up against a deadline for its April meeting of the National Landmark Committee of the National Park System Advisory Board, which was expected to review the nomination of Grand Mound for designation as a landmark at that meeting, Noble said.
Since staff at NPS hadn’t heard from MHS and weren’t aware of the situation at MHS, they took it off the agenda for April’s meeting, Noble said.
The NPS “jumped the gun” in sending the letter because of the deadline, Noble said.
The deadline didn’t matter in the end because the April meeting did not occur, Noble said. The authority designating the advisory board expired at the end of last year, therefore the board did not have the authority to meet in April, he explained.
“The confusion was needless,” Noble said of Grand Mound ownership.
The next meeting of the landmark committee is expected in October, but that meeting may also be canceled, Noble said.
The designation of Grand Mound as a National Historic Landmark would then be deferred to some time in the future, Noble said.
But both MHS and NPS favor the nomination going forward, Noble said.
“Nothing has happened that has affected the process,” Noble said.
The nomination has already passed through preliminary studies, he said.
The process is a “study of significance” of the “importance of a place in telling the history of the people of this country,” Noble said.
If there is ever a sale or exchange of Grand Mound in the future, the status of it being a National Historic Landmark goes with it, Noble said, noting that many landmarks in the United States are privately owned.