The highest house on Sugarloaf Mound has come down.

The well-known landmark sat for about 90 years on a 40-foot Indian mound overlooking the Mississippi River where Interstate 55 curves over South Broadway.

Demolition of the badly deteriorated home began last week under the supervision of its owners, the Osage Nation.

Sugarloaf Mound is the last remaining of about 40 mounds built in St. Louis by a Native American culture that thrived in this area from A.D. 600-1300. It now is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The same civilization also built the earthen works preserved at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site in Illinois.

In the late 1920s, when historic conservation of Native American sites was no concern to developers, two homes were built on the mound.

Andrea Hunter, the Osage's tribal preservation officer, said tearing down the house is the first part of the first phase of work.