Joe Walta was the man who found more points than anyone else. Joe was known as "a steady Cahokia collector." He was especially known for his large collection of fine Cahokia points most of which he found himself. He began collecting in 1930 when he was a baseball pitcher and found a point on the infield. Not long after that he moved to St. Louis and began collecting at the Cahokia Mounds site. He visited the site to surface collect in the cultivated fields six to ten times a month. In the early years he would find as many as 40 points in one day. On one trip he found nine "gem points”. After twenty years of looking he found 3,000 Cahokia points. Three hundred of these were “Gempoints” but many were broken. After several years went by and the area was built up with subdivisions, a racetrack, factories, tourist courts and an out-door theater he could only find five of the more crudely made Cahokia points in one day.

     The collector who owned pretty much all the Cahokia "gem points" at one time or another was Bill Fecht. He was also the most eccentric of collectors. He lived and breathed Cahokia points and it's his enthusiasm that probably rubbed off on the several other collectors that he eventually sold many of his "gem points" to. But he never did sell his best points even though later in his life he was destitute and living in his car. He would talk about the beautiful colors in his points by using descriptive terms like pigeon blood, wine red, watermelon, canary yellow, Chinese red or lavender. He carried his best "gem points" with him in his pocket. He kept them glued down on round pieces of cardboard that were layered in a small plastic electrical tape container. He would talk about them as if some were related to each other. He would say "this one is a brother to this one, etc." There is no doubt that Bill Fecht regarded his Cahokia "gem points" as his most important possession.

     Probably the most famous Cahokia collector in the St. Louis area was Dr. Paul F. Titterington. During his lifetime he was able to assemble a large over all collection that included Paleo through Mississippian artifacts. But his main interest in archaeology centered on the Cahokia Mounds site. He was closely associated with the professional archaeologists of his time and wrote several articles on the subject. Dr. Titterington was also one of the earliest collectors in the area. He was born in 1895, the son of a medical doctor. He also became professionally involved in medicine and lived 74 years before he died in 1969. He began collecting in the 1930’s and found some points himself while surface collecting in cultivated fields at Cahokia but also traded for several points from Joe Walta.

     According to an article written by Dr. Titterington in the book “Cahokia Brought to Life” in 1950 he wrote, "arrowheads are by far the most numerous of all the stone pieces found at Cahokia." In 1938 he did a survey and counted 3,517 complete and broken Cahokia points found at Cahokia separating them in 21 different types. He was a splitter though and, for example, separated the more common triangular Madison points into nine different styles. He did another survey in 1949 and was able to count a total of 5,627 points. He calculated that almost 40% of the arrow points were un-notched and 60% were notched. It’s hard to believe but the "classic" Cahokia point style, the triple-notched variety, received a count of only 306 out of the 3,517 in the 1938 survey. Unfortunately he did not count how many were extra well made or made of colorful material. He counted only 113 multi-notched points in the 1938 survey but made no mention of tri-notched serrated points or bone points.

     Another early collector at Cahokia was Kyle Sly. Joe Walta said he had met Kyle during the first ten years he was collecting at Cahokia. This would probably have been in the 1930’s. He said he found him to be a true and enthusiastic collector. Kyle Sly evidently did quite a lot of collecting on the Cahokia Mounds site. But it was said that he could put his entire collection in a small or medium carrying case. Bill Fecht had a few of Sly’s Cahokia points in his collection.

"REFERENCES"

1929, Moorehead, Warren K., "General Observations of the Cahokia Group,"  "The Cahokia Mounds," pp. 102-103.
1936, Titterington, P. F., "The Cahokia Mound Group and It's Village Site Materials," p. 3-5.
1985, Perino, Gregory, "Selected Preforms, Points and Knives of the North American Indian," p. 59.
1999, Fowler, Melvin L., Rose, Jerome, Leest, Barbara Vander & Ahler, Steven R., "A Commemoration of Chiefly Power and Sacred Space, chap. 14," The Mound 72 Area: Dedicated and Sacred Space in Early Cahokia," p. 170.
2001, Bostrom, Peter, Cahokia "Gempoints," Prehistoric American, No. 2, Vol. 35, pp. 5-9.
Late 1970's, 1980's & 1990's, Personal communications with Gregory Perino, now deceased.
1980's & early 1990's, Personal communications with Bill Fecht, now deceased.

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