Prehistoric Circular Earthworks / The Squaring of Circleville

Prehistoric Circular Earthworks, also, The Squaring of Circleville. . Side A: , Prehistoric Circular Earthworks , Established as the county seat of Pickaway County in 1810, Circleville derives its name from the circular portion of a large Hopewell-era earthwork upon which it was built. The Circleville earthworks, described in 1772 by Rev. David Jones for a Boston magazine, comprised an 1,100 foot diameter circle connected to a 900 foot square. Town director Daniel Dreisbach platted the town directly atop the earthworks, integrating the town plan into the prehistoric landscape. An octagonal courthouse stood directly in the center. , Side B: , The Squaring of Circleville , By the mid-1830s dissatisfaction arose with Circleville's unique radial-concentric street layout. The Circleville Squaring Company, authorized by the State Assembly in 1837, undertook to convert the “peculiar” town plan into a conventional grid, and by 1856 had completed this work in several phases. Circleville occupies a unique place in the history of American town planning: not only as a subsequent development of Native American engineering, but also as the earliest known example of urban redevelopment in the United States.