The Brenner family settled the area in 1844 and the first mention of any of the mounds were in W.M. Paxton's Annals of Platte County, published in 1897 in a diary form and told of the mounds in the early 1870's. 

The only [actual from being on site]  written reports were from:

E. Putnam West  1877

Lykins 1878

Curtiss 1879

 Professor Broadhead  1880

 Professor Fowke   1907, 1910

    Mett Shippee 1920, 1935, 1937, 47

Chapman 1947 [no published report found) 

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The only dates we have were done by Crane & Griffin (University of Michigan)  in either 1958 or 1959 and were believed to be from the Curtis mounds, 23PL29.  23PL29 were two large earth mounds. 

M400-  A.D.  300  +/- 150

M399-  A.D.   490  +/-  150

I started with this drawing from Shippee (1940) in a letter to Wedel. 

This map is a combination of everything I could find where I used Google Earth's measuring tool and it's 3D technology to get as close as I possibly could to the information I could find.   Shippee, (1940) and Broadhead, (1880) had provided some measurements between the Brenner and Keller mound groups and the rest was based on a 1937 topography map.  The mound and vault positions are more accurate in the bottom photo, however the top one is easier to see.

The issue I ran into early on was that West, Broadhead, Lykins, Curtiss, (everyone) didn't know the full coverage of the all the mounds until Shippee produced a map in 1947, and even that map didn't show the full extent probably because of Shippee's lack of access to the information.  It should also be noted after reading mostly West, Lykins, Curtiss and Broadhead's reports, that none of them spent much more than one day or a weekend on their research.  

  Shippee 1920, 1934 and 37. Approximately 60 feet in diameter and about 6 feet tall, with notes revisited (1967:37).  In a personal letter to Wedel (Nov 9, 1937), Shippee reported remains of at least 10 individuals and that the mound was never fully excavated. 

  Vault. No other information was found other than Shippee recorded it and had reported it in his 1937, November letter to Dr. Wedel (Nov 9, 1937).  In that letter, he said "It might be well to record here that it pointed back along the ridge to the north where there is some evidence of a cemetery."

Was a group of three vaults that were on the south ridge about 40 feet apart and together form a triangle.  Shippee recorded it and Broadhead mentions it in his 1880 papers (p352).   I couldn't find any other information other than they were vaults. 

All except #4 were vaults where it was an earth mound. Mound #1 was recorded by West, 1877 (p16), Lykins, 1878 (p251), Broadhead 1880 (p352), Fowke 1910 (p70), Chapman 1947. [note: I could not find a report by Chapman, only notes made by Shippee that Chapman was there].  Stone lined vault with interior measurements of 7' 9" x 7" 9", with wall 36" tall with rock lined doorway to the south. Lykins did not recognize this as a vault, possibly because of West's work the year before. 

Mound #2.  Broadhead, 1880 numbered this as mound #6.  Fowke, 1910, numbered this as mound two as well as Lykins, 1878. .  Same measurements and details as Brenner mound #1.

Mound #3.  Fowkes, 1910 (p70), Lykins, 1878 (p251).  Same as Brenner vaults #1 and 2, except slightly larger and the doorway was facing east.

Mound #4.  Earth mound.   Lykins, 1878 [refers to this as mound #1 in his report],  Broadhead, 1880 and Fowkes 1910.   This mound was 100 feet southeast of Brenner mound #2.  Recorded as 50 feet in diameter and 5 feet tall.

The other three were just east of the Brenner group and were stove vault mounds.

These were two large earth mounds only separated by 75 feet (Shippee, 1947).   Both were recorded by Shippee (1940) to be oval shaped at 65 x 30 feet in diameter and five feet high. Excavated by West, 1877, Lykins, 1878, Curtiss, 1879, Broadhead, 1880, Curtis and Putnam 1880 and Fowke, 1910.  There was a lone vault mound just west of these two.

Were all stone lined burials consisting of five vaults.  West (1877), Fowkes (1910) and Shippee reported on these as well as Curtiss and Putnam 1879 by the Peabody Museum.  Because of the lack of evidence, but easier access, it's likely everyone who has reported investigated these.  

When they were first seen in the 1800's, both mounds and vaults would have appeared as earth mounds until excavated.  Mounds with vaults were generally four feet tall and 30 feet in diameter and were of the late woodland.  Earth mounds were much larger, averaging 60 feet or more in diameter and as much as 6-10 feet high and are considered more of the KC Hopewell phase.

Fowke's (1910, p 65), provides us with West's previous work in 1877 where both West and Fowke provided good arguments that vaults may have first been homes  (more under Fowke's below) before becoming a burial.  Part of their arguments are why the work to have a doorway pointed southerly and stone walls nearly 36" tall. Except they are square, the idea they are describing is similar to the Alaskan igloos.  

Except that they all shared the same ridge near Renner, there is some evidence to support the idea only the mounds were associated with the Renner site (KC Hopewell) and that the vaults were from a different or slightly later time frame where all were within the woodland period. 

Using an average of known carbon dates with the KC region, mounds generally were constructed in the 150 AD time era and vaults more into the 550 AD era.

The first documented notes on the mounds were by Judge A. E. West in 1875, who was from Kansas City. By 1910, most all or parts of all the burials had been partially destoryed either through scientific attempts or residental efforts.

While researching this project, I relized West, Broadhead, Fowke's and even Chapman were not aware of the scope of the total number of mounds and vaults.  

It wasn't until Mett Shippee began to assemble all this information in the 1930's that the scope of the numbers of burials began to come into focus where he produced that is still the only known map of the burials in 1947. 

By 1875, all the burial sites were already at least 1,200 years old, even on a generous scale and is more than enough time for simple tree growth to destroy and disguise what had been built.

All the early archaeologists report that all appeared to be mounds as first glance and it wasn't until digging showed rock lined walls, etc.  There is even evidence the Curtis mound was actually a large stone vault where there were found remnants of a partial rock wall. 

Out of the 20 first reported mounds, three were mounds and 17 were stoned lined “vaults”.  

The term “vault” is a modern day application to a belief. All were nearly exactly 8 feet square with two foot thick rock walls about three feet high. Most had door ways to the south where the entrance was also rock lined the same height about four feet out.  All but one, had a doorway pointed to the south,  which doesn't really make it a vault at all.  It makes it a storage place where it can be entered, so it is assumed they could be reused over and over?

There was an early theory these could have been homes and that was ruled out long ago by the lack of pottery, tools and object associated with a village---although, all have been reported to have been found at most of the burials. 

Broadhead and Fowke reported the rocks were layed with the precision of a modern day mason without the use of mortar.

There was no evidence what may have been a roof. It's a belief the top was with timbers which were thatched over to form a roof.

The amazing part is all this work was covered with dirt that was hand carried where each vault would appear as a dirt mound about 24 feet in diameter and 6 feet high. So, if you take a five gallon bucket and build a mound of earth, say only 2' high and 12' in diameter, that would be roughly 400 square feet of dirt, or about 200 five gallon buckets. With the carrying availability these prehistoric people had, probably 500 trips are closer.  You would have to build your bucket and construct something to dig the earth with, so it was a big deal that had to be thought out in advance and required a major community effort.  If you were a dying important person, you better have had your resting place made already or stay alive for about another month---unless it's winter--if so, you need to stay alive until the ground thaws.

West and Broadhead reported the centers appeard to have been dug in by relic hunters and apprently had ruled out the fact these could have had roofs that caved in.

So why did the walls have to be two feet thick and why were they of rock when they could have done the same thing out of wood. If the walls are rock, then why not the roof? Then after you go through all this effort, why do you cover the whole thing with dirt?  

Whatever the true meaning an purpose is for these vaults, is something we may never know or understand. We do know some were reused. Some showed signs of being burned like a crematory. Some skeletons were found in a sitting position, while others were laying flat. Most bodies were found incomplete.

West was the first to publish his findings after visiting the Brenner mound group in 1877.  He was a Kansas City judge who moonlighted his hobby at archaeology. (more will be added)

Lykins followed up on West's previous work the summer before with the Brenner mound group. (more will be added)

Curtiss and Putnam reported on three of the Keller mounds that were stoned lined vaults. 

In the formative years of American archaeology, training in field methodology was virtually nonexistent. So when Peabody Museum Director Frederic Ward Putnam began to build the young museum's collections, he often hired nonprofessional fieldworkers. Notable among them was Nashville resident Edwin Curtiss (1830-1880), who had worked as a contractor for government dam, bridge, and railroad projects before joining Putnam's archaeological excavations in the American Southeast in 1877. 

Fowke's investigated the Brenner and Keller mound group in 1907 and was the first to provide photos of his work. 

Born Charles Mitchell Smith in Charleston Bottom, Mason County, Kentucky, near Maysville, his parents were John D. Smith and Sibella Smith.[1][4][5] He was the eldest of five children and the only one to survive to adulthood.[1][4]Fowke's mother died before he reached ten years of age.[4] He spent his childhood in Kentucky and was raised by his father and other relatives.[2] In 1887, he legally changed his name to Gerard Fowke, naming himself after a prominent American ancestor of his maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Fowke.[1][6] 

He worked as a bookkeeper and clerk in Nashville, Tennessee, before returning to Kentucky in 1873.[2][4] From 1873 to 1876, Fowke was a student and farmer in Kentucky.[4] In 1876, he moved to central Illinois, where he taught grammar school for two years.[2][4] He then taught in Brown County, Ohio, before taking a position as a grammar school principal in Sidney, Ohio, from 1879 to 1881.[2][4] In 1881, he took a class at Ohio State University in geology and archeology. After this course, he became interested enough in the subject to spend the rest of his life in the study of geology and archeology.[4] 

From 1911 to 1916, he worked for the Missouri Historical Society, studying the geology of the Saint Louis, Missouri area. Before this, he had studied geology in Ohio. Fowke also worked for the Jefferson Memorial in Saint Louis, setting up a collection there of Native American relics. He rearranged them in 1926, and set up a new collection in 1930.[9] 

Fowke's was the last of the early explorers to investigate the mounds and possibly the most educated at that point.  He believed there was evidence to support the idea the stone chambers were intended as places of occupation. [1910,p 65]

Shippee was the first to produce a map of the mounds near the Renner site and the first to make a connection to the Renner site. (unpublished letter to Wedel, November 6, 1937).  Shippee was the only one to publish a report on the only mound west of Renner.  The Renner mound which he first excavated in 1920, a year before he discovered the Renner Site. 

On November 9, 1937, he sent a letter to Wedel about his work on the Renner mound.  This was after Wedel had spent June of that summer at the Renner site.  Wedel probably casually asked Shippee to send him the information on the burials.  Shippee would send other letters including one from March 18, 1940.

We learn that from the November 9 letter that Shippee reported he first investigated the Renner mound in 1920 and a second time in 1934.  

Below is his drawing at the bottom of the November 9th letter of the Renner mound.