Who Carved the Waubansee Stone?

The Committee Films crew with guest Scott Mastores (second from left) after wrapping the final shoot.



One of four base relief carvings on towers made of Indiana Limestone on the Michigan Avenue Bridge, over the Chicago River, has an interesting five-pointed star on a Native American shield.  Along with other interesting symbols within the carvings, does it reflect the ideological leanings of the artist, Henry Hering, or perhaps of the ones who commissioned them? 

Scott, field producer, Paula Engelking (left side) and guest, Dr. Scott Mastores, with his daughter Katie, pose with the Waubansee Stone at a secret location outside of Chicago. 

A closer view of the face carved on the Waubansee Stone shows the hole in the mouth where water was designed to flow from the bowl on top.

A piece of glacial field stone from the Ohman farm in Kensington, Minnesota, where the Kensington Rune Stone was discovered in 1898, is mortared into the outside wall of the Chicago Tribune Building in downtown Chicago.

Just like the Rock Wall in Texas, when we began shooting this episode I was a little surprised I had never before heard of the Waubansee Stone.  In fact, there is sparse information about it on the Internet or in books.  It's one of those artifacts that slipped through the cracks of history and its origin truly is a mystery.  As we pursued the investigation, it quickly became clear to me this was not the creation of a bored soldier at Fort Dearborn 200 years ago, who carved the face on this stone that at one time was originally eight feet long.  I also read where the local native tribes reported the stone was upright with one end three feet in the ground like a megalithic standing stone.  It might have been erected to mark the important, and very ancient, portage route to the Mississippi River from Lake Michigan.  It seems perfectly logical to speculate the standing stone could date back thousands of years as an important marker for the ancient Copper Culture, both from Europe and for indigenous people to have used this portage to transport their valuable cargo.

It's difficult for people to imagine these days, but the landscape of the Great Lakes region in the post-glacial period two to five millennia ago looked much different than it does today.  In fact, at one point of what is now the Chicago River that flows into Lake Michigan, the river likely flowed directly out of the lake to the Mississippi.  As the continental ice sheets melted back, lake levels were constantly changing.  Isostatic rebound of the earth's crust from the removal of the immense weight of the ice also created dramatic changes in lake levels and the flow of rivers and streams over the past five thousand years.  Remember, because of differences in water levels in the past, there almost certainly were easier travel routes for larger vessels between the individual Great Lakes than they would be now.  Excluding of course, modern canals and locks.

In any case, the most likely scenario for me is the Phoenicians, and/or whichever ancient cultures in the America's that were involved in the early mining of copper in the Lake Superior region.  I'm certainly open to other possibilities, such as the Mayans, Aztecs, or some other early Native American group as the carvers of the mysterious face, but I'm not at all receptive to the notion that a soldier with the advanced skills, appropriate tools, and time on his hands at Fort Dearborn had anything to do with it.  Therefore, this makes the Waubansee Stone one the most historically important and valuable  artifacts in North America.  In my opinion, it should be front page news and I'm hopeful that it will soon be prominently displayed for the American public to see and ponder.