By Bobby Tanzilo Senior Editor/Writer Published Mar 11, 2012 at 9:03 AM

Parents perhaps sometimes wonder what about their own lives will wow their kids.

Whatever I might have expected would impress my eldest, I certainly didn't think it was that I had once visited Cahokia. I'd have thought even the mundane fact that I was on my way to play a rock and roll gig in St. Louis would be more impressive than a brief stop at the site of an ancient Native American settlement.

But kids go through phases – each makes us wonder if they've found the THING that will inspire them for a lifetime – and the current phase is Native Americans and their culture. When I stumbled upon a kids picture book about Cahokia, you'd have thought I uncovered a rare trove of Scooby Doo videos.

So, recently, we went looking for Indian mounds in Milwaukee and learned that though there were once many only two remain in the county. Of course, we hopped into the car and visited them both.

The first is located next to the Tommy Thompson center in the Department of Natural Resources area of Wisconsin State Fair Park. The remaining mound is one of four that were once located on the site.

According to a recent marker on the site, the mound is "probably hundreds of years old." The mounds were on the outlying part of a Native American village that once existed between the site and nearby Honey Creek.

It also notes that amateur collectors excavating the four mounds found bowls, kettles and a skeleton. "Artifacts dating to 8000 BC were found at the base of a nearby 'treaty tree.'"

Though the area was deserted when we visited, the site was the scene of a 2006 reconciliation event that drew Native Americans from across the country.

Next, we headed over to Lake Park, where the only other extant mound in Milwaukee County is located.

Once again, a plaque, this one much older – dated 1910 – notes that the single mound is the sole survivor of a group of mounds that were "destroyed in recent years." Several of the destroyed mounds were larger than the current one, which might just look like a quirk in the terrain if one didn't know better.

These mounds, the plaque opines, were part of a stone age village that once stood on the site.

It's hard not to wince a little when you read it is the "last of many fine burial, linear and animal shaped mounds formerly located within the present limits of the City of Milwaukee."

Though it will be of small consolation to the descendants of these peoples, there are still quite a few fine groups of mounds that survive in Southeast Wisconsin.

Out between Lake Mills and Fort Atkinson is Aztalan, the site of an ancient 20-acre Middle-Mississippian village that was at its height between the 11th and 14th centuries. You can still walk the pyramidal mounds and there is a reconstruction of an old stockade wall. There is also an Aztalan Museum with artifacts uncovered at the site.

Nearby, on Highway 106 in Fort Atkinson, is the panther intaglio. Discovered by Increase Lapham in 1850, it is the only known panther intaglio effigy. While you're there visit the Hoard Museum in downtown Fort Atkinson, which has a collection of Native American artifacts.

Next on our mound-seeking adventure are visits to Lizard Mound County Park in Washington County, which is temporarily closed for construction, and Sheboygan Indian Mound Park. Both sites are home to numerous animal-shaped mounds.

To learn about mounds across Wisconsin, including some at Carroll College and Cutler Park in Waukesha, visit wisconsinmounds.com.

Bobby Tanzilo Senior Editor/Writer

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.

He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.

With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.

He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.

In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.

He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.