Sacra Via (Sacred Way)

A reconstructed segment of the ancient Hopewell ceremonial road that connected the Marietta earthworks — once one of the most elaborate ceremonial earthwork complexes in North America — to the Ohio River. The Ohio Company settlers recognized and named these earthworks, which they called Conus (the large burial mound), Quadranaou (a large square enclosure), and Capitolium (a smaller mound). The naming itself was significant: these Massachusetts veterans compared what they found to Rome. The Sacra Via segment that survives gives visitors a sense of the ancient landscape the settlers encountered.