The Indigenous Mound on the UT agricultural campus is more than a thousand years old. It was incorporated into the campus in 1869 when the university purchased the farm of Matthew McClung for use as the agricultural campus. The mound is 12 feet high and is more oval than round.
An archaeological report prepared in 1975 by Charles Faulkner and James E. Cobb describes some of the scars that currently exist on the mound. One scar on the east side marks the site of a root cellar, constructed early in the twentieth century. The cellar was used by the agricultural staff as part of a vegetable demonstration project. The walls were boarded, preventing a view of the mound’s interior. There is evidence of a 1940s trench, whose purpose is not known. In the 1950s, another trench was dug along the south side. T. M. N. Lewis and Madeline Kneberg tested the mound in the 1950s to see whether it was still intact and found that it was. The mound has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1978, and a park was designed to preserve the mound and protect it from further damage.