Photo: Willa Cather Prairie

Photographer: James King
Taken: June 20, 2015
Caption: Willa Cather Prairie
Additional Description: is a small slice of the Great Plains, an immense, sloping prairie that once ran uninterrupted from Canada to central Texas. Cather Prairie is home to more than 250 species of plants, 59 birds, 29 mammals, 13 reptiles/amphibians and hundreds of insects. Gazing northward from this site, one can imagine the vast but promising "shaggy grass" country of My Ántonia which appeared to stretch endlessly over the horizon. This prairie has changed very little from the land first witnessed by Willa Cather and other immigrants who stepped off the train at the Red Cloud depot. To the homesteader who attempted to farm this land, the lack of trees and the broad horizon represented a formidable landscape that was originally a source of fear and frustration. Today, the few unbroken prairie remnants that remain are recognized as treasures that support the biodiversity that is an essential component of our world.

The Willa Cather Memorial Prairie represents the interface between the literary world of Willa Cather and the natural world of her childhood. Just as the Republican River Valley serves as a divide between the northern and southern mixed-grass prairies, this rolling grassland is a crossroads or transition zone where animals and plants with southern and northern affinities meet. Fremont's leather flower, Fendler's aster, and Fremont's evening primrose are rare plants that occasionally occur here on these border prairies just north of the state line, but are found nowhere else in Nebraska. Whether you walk the prairie trail or pause at this site to view the vibrant colors of this grassland, Willa Cather Memorial Prairie can be enjoyed during any season of the year.
Submitted: July 19, 2015, by James King of San Miguel, California.
Database Locator Identification Number: p316282
File Size: 2.542 Megabytes

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