Tall Grass Prairie National Preserve

Location:  From Strong City, take Hwy K-177 North 2 miles or from Council Grove take Hwy K-177 South 18 miles.

Nearest Towns:  Council Grove, Strong City, Cottonwood Falls

Contact:  Ph. 316/273-8494 or visit the Website:   Tall Grass Preserve

This beautiful limestone mansion is the first thing you notice at the Tall Grass National Preserve.  Constructed by Stephen F. Jones in 1881, it was meant to impress visitors then and it still does today.  It featured running water (provided by a spring up the hill) and also had a fountain in the front yard.  Jones only lived there for 8 years before selling the ranch and moving to Kansas City.  Another interesting building near the house is the outhouse, used before the advent of indoor bathrooms.  It too is constructed of native stone. 

Also quite impressive is the huge stone barn which measured 60 by 110 feet and only lacked 2 feet from being the largest barn in Kansas at the time of its' construction.  It too featured running water from the same spring which supplied the house.  It once housed 200 swine, 30 horses, 8 milk cows, and 4 mules as well as storing hay and grain.  The view from the arched door on the west is pretty nice.

As impressive and interesting as the farmstead buildings are, the reason that this area was set aside as a National Preserve is the tallgrass prairie.  Cattle still graze here.  When the private organization, The National Park Trust, bought the ranch in 1994 with the intention of turning it over to the National Park Service, it caused an uproar among local people.  Many were not comfortable having a National Park in their back yard.  These are independent folks, used to dealing with nature on her own terms.  It's a land where  self-reliance goes with the territory.  Finally a compromise solution was reached.  The National Park Service is limited to owning the 160 acres which includes the homestead and a small one room school.  The rest of the 7,000 acres are owned by the National Park Trust which must still pay property taxes on the land.  One way they provide income for this is to lease the range land to local ranchers to graze cattle on.  There are plans to eventually establish a small bison herd here, too.  The National Park Service conducts tours of the ranch house as well as a 7 mile shuttle bus tour of the prairie itself.  The barn houses displays of old farm equipment and a 10-minute video presentation is available there also.  A small book store and gift shop is located in the ranch house.

The Southwind Nature Trail starts at the ranch house and  leads past several interesting exhibits and across the prairie to the picturesque Lower Fox Creek one room school and back to the homestead for a total of about 1 3/4 miles.

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