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Discover Mid-America — June 2008
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Road trip to the Z Bar
by Bruce Rodgers, Editor/Publisher
Hit the road last month in the usual “gotta get out of here” frame of mind. I longed for the outside…sun, birds, rural and different, taking my friend Terri along.
For years I had wanted to visit the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve outside Strong City, KS. I think the longing came from a still residue cowboy/Indian predilection first cultivated as a young boy, armed with a cap pistol, firing at the television set during shows such as The Lone Ranger and Cisco Kid. Call me captured by America’s entrenched fascination with the Old West.
The conquering of the West meant the destruction of the tallgrass prairie whose ecosystem sustained Native populations and fed the millions of bison that migrated across the North American plains.
Only 4 percent of the once 400,000 square miles of tallgrass prairie remain. The Flint Hills of Kansas and Oklahoma hold the remaining prairie, the largest remnant near Pawhuska, OK.
Kansas has the Konza Prairie, some 8,600 acres near Manhattan and nearly 11,000 acres formerly known as the Z Bar/Spring Hill Ranch just north of Strong City. In 1994, the National Park Trust with the intent of creating a Tallgrass Prairie National Park purchased the ranch.
But politics got in the way of creating Kansas’ first national park. So in 1996, legislation was passed creating the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve under private ownership. By 2004, financial pressures forced the state to create the Kansas Park Trust or the land would be sold. From there, the Park Trust approached The Nature Conservancy for help. The nonprofit group purchased the land in 2005.
Currently, the National Park Service owns some 180 acres and manages the entire preserve cooperatively with The Nature Conservancy. Since it’s inception the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve on the old Z-Bar/Spring Hill Ranch land has struggled for funding and wider public recognition.
It’s a change of fortune compared to when Colorado cattleman Stephen F. Jones built his 3-story, 11-room Empire style home in 1881. According to local folklore, Jones had “money sticking out of every pocket.”
The house was built from native white limestone on a hill overlooking Fox Creek. Jones sold the property less than 10 years after building his mansion. In 1971, the structure was placed on the National Register of Historic Places and in 1997 the Z Bar/Spring Hill Ranch was designated a National Historic Landmark.
All this recognition hasn’t helped fund the Preserve’s upkeep. Politics, again.
When we took a tour with a friendly National Park ranger, it wasn’t hard to spot the deterioration going on to the limestone ranch home. When I pointed out the peeling paint and Terri mentioned the mold, the ranger sadly refrained, “I guess people are afraid their taxes are going to go up.”
But if the public doesn’t want to pay for upkeep on their historical landmarks, their nature preserves and maintaining the country’s history for future generations, what do we want to pay for?
More politics.
If you want to help, send your donation to Friends of the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Route 1, Box 14, Strong City, KS 66869. For more information, call 316-273-8247 or email prairie@parktrust.org.
Bruce Rodgers can be contacted at publisher@discoverypub.com.
> Refurnished Thoughts Archive — past columns
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