07/22/2026
Just got this interesting map from Murray Bishoff, a long time Monett area journalist, showing Native American encampments in the Granby and Ritchey area. He said this is the work of Lee Adams. Lee started his work in the early 1930s and likely wrapped up by 1960. Bishoff has given photos of about 200 pages of his papers from Barry and Lawrence counties to the Monett Museum. Lee also looked at McDonald County, Stone and Newton. Most of the habituated sites Lee probed are along streams. Lee's general conclusions were the sites were of great age, undatable, but showing very little pottery, no signs of trade, and very few shell products, which ae much more common in later settlements. So the population would have generally been thousands of years ago, before the Mississippians. Large concentrations of artifacts, Lee felt, reflected years of nomadic movement, seasonal relocation and returning to familiar places, rather than constant habitation. Each triangle on the map represents a Native American site. Very interesting!
