America’s newest national park–the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in the scenic Flint Hills of central Kansas–was dedicated Saturday.
“This is the most beautiful land in the world,” said former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker on a day featuring tours, speeches, music and talk about the park’s future. The ex-senator owns a ranch in the area.
At one time, nearly 400,000 square miles of tallgrass prairie stretched from Ohio to the Rocky Mountains and from Canada to Texas. Less than 1 percent of that prairie remains, much of it in the Flint Hills.
The park’s 10,894 acres sit along a two-lane highway. It includes a ranch house, a barn and a small schoolhouse–all built from native rock.
A management plan is under development and only a 1.75-mile nature hike is open to the public full-time. The prairie is scrubby from the traditional spring burn-off but by late summer, much of the prairie grass will be 3 or 4 feet high.
