City plows beneath Native American site for Sam's Club

Oxford, Ala. Raising eyebrows statewide, bucket loaders and bulldozers are tearing apart a hill that researchers call the foundation of an ancient Native American site to provide fill dirt for a Sam's Club store.

According to the Associated Press, Tribal advocates and state officials say a large stone mound that tops the 200-ft. rise was put there a millennium ago by Native Americans during a religious observance.

Despite a city-commissioned study that found tribal artifacts in the red clay that makes up the mound, Oxford, Ala., mayor Leon Smith has denied that the work by the city is damaging anything important.

The red soil is being trucked downhill to the site of a new Sam's warehouse store and a small retail strip, where it's being used to build up a good base for foundations.

Officials with Sam's Club, a division of Wal-Mart Stores, said no material from the rock mound is going into the site where the store is under construction.

City project manager Fred Denney said officials plan to remove the top of the hill eventually to create an elevated, eight-acre site that will overlook the Choccolocco Valley and the city of Oxford.

Denney said the city purchased the hill and surrounding acreage several years ago for $10 million for development.

City officials deny they are insensitive to history. Denney said officials have banned development at a 12-acre site about a half-mile from the hill because archaeologists found evidence that Native Americans once had a community there.