Prairie State Park

Tallgrass prairie once covered more than a third of Missouri. Less than one percent of it remains, and much of that is here, on the Osage plains of Barton County a few miles from Kansas: nearly 4,000 acres of grassland and woods, with a bison herd that numbered about 100 in 2021, and elk. The bison graze freely, and that shapes a visit. Pets are allowed only on two trails, the state lists bison among the trail hazards, and a naturalist leads a guided bison saunter once a month, except in October.

The trail names keep older layers of the land. Drover's Trail, a 2.5-mile loop, is named for the cowboys who drove cattle across this prairie to market. Path of the Earth People crosses Hunkah Prairie and Path of the Sky People crosses Tzi-Sho Prairie, names the park translates from the Osage. The Earth People loop runs 1.9 miles beside East Drywood Creek through big and little bluestem, cordgrass, gayfeather and white wild indigo. The 1.7-mile Sky People loop crosses hardpan prairie where Henslow's sparrows and upland sandpipers call. Sandstone Trail, at 4.25 miles the longest, follows a mile of East Drywood Creek designated an Outstanding State Resource Water, its pools lined with sandstone.

Start at the Regal Tallgrass Prairie Nature Center, with its diorama of the prairie from spring to fall and its bison exhibit. In even-numbered years the park holds Prairie Jubilee on the last Saturday of September, with wagon rides out to the herd.