Arnold E. A. Roitsch Archeological Site

Archeologists have worked this Caddo village under several names. Reports call it the Arnold Roitsch site, the Sam Kaufman site, the Bob Williams site and the Kaufman-Williams site, and it carries the number 41RR16. Investigations date to the 1930s. Southern Methodist University published its excavations in 1969, and a Texas Archeological Society field school dug there in 1991. A ceramic study by later researchers notes that the West Mound was washed away in the 1990 flood.

What the plaque says

Arnold E. A. Roitsch Archeological Site In this vicinity archeologists have located a large village and ceremonial center occupied between A.D. 1000 and A.D. 1700 by ancestors of the Caddo Indians. Sedentary farmers, the Caddos built villages and farms on alluvial terraces of the Red River. Evidence from the site has revealed a number of scattered farmsteads and two earthen mounds which served as religious or ceremonial centers. The site also has yielded Caddo ceramics, plus glass beads, and metal weapons and tools, indicating the tribes in this area traded with European explorers. (1992)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Wheelock Academy Historic Site — 9.4 mi
  The Choctaw Nation's academy for girls, rebuilt in 1884 near Millerton and a boarding school until 1955, with its museum in the old teachers' dormitory.
• Lennox Woods Preserve — 10 mi
  A Nature Conservancy preserve of mature East Texas forest north of Clarksville, kept by the Lennox family for four generations, with a 1.5-mile loop under post oaks more than 300 years old.
• Fort Towson Historic Site — 12 mi
  The 1824 Red River post where arriving Choctaw and Chickasaw families were dispersed after removal, beside the site of Doaksville, the Choctaw capital where Stand Watie surrendered in 1865.
• Beavers Bend State Park — 29 mi
  Pine and hardwood Ouachita hills where the Mountain Fork leaves Broken Bow Lake, a 1930s CCC park named for a Choctaw citizen, with trout water, a 26-mile ridge trail and the Forest Heritage Center.

More markers nearby

• Near Here at the Old Jonesboro Crossing Sam Houston — 1.9 mi
• Jonesboro — 1.9 mi
• Jesse B. Bowman — 1.9 mi
• Jane Chandler Gill — 1.9 mi