WAMEGO, Kan. (AP) — A group of volunteers has transformed an expanse of untouched native prairie grass into a destination for those who want to walk across the tallgrass that greeted settlers.
The Mount Mitchell Prairie Guards hope to preserve, protect and promote this area a few miles south of Wamego and east of a bend in the Kansas River as one of the few places left in the world to walk through untouched native prairie grass, The Manhattan Mercury reported.
“That’s an experience you can’t get anywhere else,” said Michael Stubbs, a member of the volunteer group. “That, to me, is one of the best attractions — actually being in the tallgrass.”
The property includes a hill that was was considered sacred by the land’s original inhabitants 1,500 years ago. It overlooks the homestead where Captain William Mitchell and his sister Agnes, abolitionists from Connecticut, sheltered freedom seekers as they hid from slave hunters during the state’s bloody origins in the mid-19th century.
Mitchell’s son gave the land to the Kansas Historical Society in 1953 with the condition that the site be turned into a public park. The local volunteers took on the project in 2006 after the Historical Society was unable to create the park.
In June, the Mount Mitchell guards purchased 125 additional acres of the original Mitchell Farm property and expanded the park to 165 acres.
In addition to adding walking trails and reservable prairie land to the park, Stubbs said the group hopes to build a interpretive center, with exhibits on the native flora and fauna, the Native American roots, the hill’s role in the Underground Railroad and other bits of the area’s history.
Stubbs hopes that the site is eligible to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The hill is already a National Park Service-authenticated Network to Freedom Underground Railroad site and a stop along the National Stone Scenic Byway.
Schools, scouting groups, hikers, geologists and birders already trek out to the property, and the Mount Mitchell Prairie Guards work with docents at the Flint Hills Discovery Center to bring people interested in tallgrass out to the hill.
