Before walking onto the stage at the Ohio History Center, Brent Lane gave audience members tote bags and asked them to lift the bags.
Most people said the bags were a bit heavy before passing them back.
It was only at the end of his talk that Lane revealed the tote bags contained 10-pound bags of cat litter, if anyone was wondering, meant to demonstrate how the massive Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks were built by moving one basket of earth at a time.
“Can you imagine a bucket brigade of people passing baskets of dirt? Millions of tons,” Lane said.
Eight earthworks – Newark’s Great Circle and Octagon Earthworks, five earthworks at the Hopewell Cultural National Historical Park, near Chillicothe, and Fort Ancient, in Warren County, became Ohio’s first and only World Heritage site, and the 25th in the U.S., in September.
Direct and indirect economic impacts
Lane, a Senior Executive in Residence at the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs at Ohio University, spoke at the Ohio History Center about the economic impact of World Heritage status – the highest designation in the world for cultural and natural heritage.
Lane said World Heritage status should double visits to the earthworks, create about 180 new, full-time jobs, and generate about $12.5 million in Licking, Ross and Warren counties in about three years.
But he calls that direct impact “modest.”
“It's not modest if you get one of those 180 jobs, but it is modest,” Lane said.
The real economic impact will come from overnight visitors, especially from other states or other countries, who stay in local lodging, eat at restaurants and seek more experiences, he said.
World Heritage visitors tend to be knowledgeable and have high expectations.
“They want to visit, I don't mean this ironically, exotic Ohio and its own very distinctive set of historic attractions,” Lane said.
Lane said that means selling and celebrating the story of the earthworks.
“The communal nature of these sites, the role of the descendant communities who have lost their place in Ohio, but have recaptured it because in many ways, their participation in the World Heritage Site process, that's a unique story in World Heritage Site, certainly in North America,” Lane said.
"They want to visit – I don't mean this ironically – exotic Ohio and its own very distinctive set of historic attractions."- Brent Lane, Ohio University School of Leadership and Public Affairs
Getting to know the earthworks
Another key to making Ohio’s new World Heritage site a success is making sure the locals know all about it.
Ross County is piloting a short online program to educate frontline restaurant, hotel and shop workers about the sites. When they finish, they get a certificate and a badge that says, “ask me about World Heritage.”
“The last thing we want is a visitor to come or a local to come and say, 'Do you know anything about earthworks or mounds in your community?' And they just look at this blank look and say 'no',” said Ross-Chillicothe Visitors Bureau Executive Director Melody Young.
Licking and Warren counties will start similar programs this spring, though some businesses already embrace the earthworks.
Newark Earthworks site manager Sarah Hinkleman said when Great Circle visitors are looking for lunch, she points them to Newark Station.
“They have Earthworks Cafe and Lounge. And in that restaurant, they actually have a whole wall painted with one of the maps of the Newark Earthworks complex. So, it's pretty amazing,” Hinkleman said.
The Newark Earthworks have noticed an uptick in visitors since the World Heritage buzz.
Museum staff counted 4,689 more visitors from July 2023 to February 2024 as the same period in the previous year. This winter, the first the Newark Earthworks Museum has stayed open and saw 285 visitors in January and 400 visitors in February.
None of those numbers are exact representations of how many people visit the earthworks. The Great Circle is only staffed four days a week and for scheduled tours, but the site is open from dawn until dusk. The Octagon currently only has occasional open house days.
“We would ideally love to be open seven days a week, but I still have a staff of four,” said Hinkleman.
No check – no problem
That’s because, as Ohio History Connection Chief Historic Sites Officer Jennifer Aultman pointed out, World Heritage status doesn’t come with “a bucket of money.”
“I was in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the day that the signs were inscribed. We did not get a check that day or any other day since,” Aultman said during Lane’s talk.
But the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks can learn from other World Heritage sites, like Hadrian’s Wall in northern England.
“Hadrian’s wall is the remainders of a stone wall. Not even the stone wall,” Lane laughed.
Still, visitors often “walk the wall” via trail or visit the communities along the wall, which all have local, distinctive culture, Lane said. Often, people stay overnight in different towns – as an Ohio visitor might if they wanted to see all eight earthworks included in the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks World Heritage site.
Then there's Cahokia Mounds in Illinois, described by Aultman and Lane as both a success story and a cautionary tale.
“A lot of people say, you know, we're saying, 'Well, Cahokia, you know, visitation went up ten-fold when they got World Heritage',” Aultman said. “And when we dug into it, we actually saw with...it was the construction of the new visitor center.”
Fort Ancient already has a large museum, but the Newark museum is much smaller, Aultman said.
“So, you know, what is the opportunity there for building something bigger, for telling the bigger story,” Aultman asked.
Lane, however, pointed out that despite Cohokia being grand compared to the smaller Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, and it being located fairly close to St. Louis, “it has had essentially no economic effect in the surrounding host community.”
Lane also pointed to The Monumental Earthworks of Poverty Point in rural Louisiana as an example of what not to do.
“The lack of the rich visitor experience that we're talking about in economic terms really reduces the appeal of that site,” Lane said.
"What is the opportunity there for building something bigger, for telling the bigger story?”- Jennifer Aultman, Ohio History Connection Chief Historic Officer
Value outside the dollar
Lane said the economic impact of a World Heritage site can help bolster the real goals: education and stewardship.
He added that the site has value beyond the dollar, especially when you consider the possibility for high school science, math and history classes designed around the earthworks, and other ways the communities might incorporate the site into their stories.
“When the World Heritage slide logo in appropriate form shows up on a coffee mug in the local coffee shop, that's a measure of success,” Lane said.
