It is the desire of the O'Brien
Conservation Board to provide the best possible
education and preservation with regard to the nature
and environment so unique to this area.
The Waterman area offers some of
the most breath-taking views of nature in the area.
Formed during the last ice age by the movement of
glaciers, the geographic valley we are nestled near
a geographical wonder known as a hanging valley.
These glaciers carved the beautiful bluffs,
valleys, rivers and lakes we see today. They also
deposited some of the richest soil, known as till,
in the world.
In addition to the
landscape, the Waterman Area offers a wide variety
of flora and fauna, indigenous to the area for
thousands of years. Much of the native prairie
grasses, wildflowers and tree growth look the same
today as they would have when the first native
peoples inhabited this land. There are even plots
of land in the vicinity that remain virgin prairie,
untilled by human hands or machinery.
In the mid-1940's Dr. Ada Hayden
of Iowa State University conducted a statewide
inventory of prairie remnants. Her #1 site for
preservation is the Waterman area. It should be
noted that according to a report for the Nature
Conservancy, this site is one of the few locations
for the Prairie Bush Clover, a rare species listed
with the federal government. The Conservancy has
also identified this area as "as site of regional
significance in our Northern Tallgrass Ecoregional
Plan".
The area is so
noteworthy in beauty, it is now part of the State
of Iowa's Scenic By-Way program.
WHERE IT IS LOCATED
The Prairie
Heritage Center is located in Northwest Quarter of
Section 26 in Waterman Township, within two miles of
the junction of Buena Vista, Cherokee, Clay and
O'Brien counties . The building site covers
approximately 38 acres for the building, displays and
activities, plus 235 acres of adjacent prairie and
preserved public lands. It also serves as a
staging point for various excursions in the
surrounding public areas.
WHAT CAN YOU
LEARN?
The Prairie
Heritage Center provides classrooms, exhibit
areas, demonstration plots and interpretive trails
to aid in increasing the public's understanding of
the prairie ecosystem and history of the area.
Regular, year-round environmental education
programs for school groups, 4-H groups, scout
groups and the general public are presented at
the center by staff naturalists and guest speakers.
Rooms for public meetings are available at the
center. The center also serves to collect and
disseminate information relating the environmental
issues in the region.
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Inkpaduta
and his fearsome band of followers used the
waterways of the Waterman Area for
transportation. In 1857 they stopped at
the Waterman cabin and the Kirchner cabin near
Peterson, terrorizing and stealing from the
settlers before continuing on to Okoboji where
the famous massacre took place. This was
the last Indian uprising in the area.
Inkpaduta's canoe trail can be visited and
canoed today.
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In July of 1933 the Barrow
gang, a roving band of bank robbing outlaws
hid out in the Waterman Area after robbing an
Everly bank. Their leaders, the infamous
Bonnie & Clyde Barrow spoke with a local
resident, ate pheasant and hid from their
pursuers.
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Regular, year-round environmental education
programs for school groups, 4-H groups, scout
groups and the general public are presented
at the center by staff naturalists and guest
speakers. |
Visit the Prairie Heritage Center website or contact
O'Brien County Conservation. Although the initial fundraiser is over successfully, donations, in money or in kind, are welcome to support programming and facility improvements. You can buy an engraved memorial brick for placement in the Prairie Heritage Center.
These bricks for the Prairie Heritage Center are $100.00 each. Engraving for one brick
is maximum of 3 lines - 14 letters per line -
spaces and punctuation count as letters.
Mail to the Little
Sioux Valley Conservation Assn., 5660 - 460th St,
Paullina, IA 51046
O'Brien County Conservation
4931 Yellow Ave.
Peterson, IA 51047
712-295-7200
E-mail:
occb@iowatelecom.net
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to top
From
Left:
With
the need for environmental education on the rise,
the naturalist program aims at educating the public
by interpreting the natural resources of the county
promoting the natural resources of the county, and
developing an environmentally responsible
citizenry. 
O'BRIEN COUNTY PRAIRIE HERITAGE CENTER
