By Emily Rinaman, Technical Services Librarian
Most Ohio libraries have copies of the Little House on the Prairie Books but there are areas in Ohio where one can actually experience a real prairie, too. While Laura Ingalls Wilder never set foot in Ohio, the landscape she was familiar with as a child did and many are trying to preserve those habitats.
For the proof, we have to go back thousands of years to something called the “Xerothermic Interval”. Prairies need hot weather to survive and while Ohio gets plenty of heat during the summers, about 4,000-8,000 years ago, Ohio had a much different climate (even though some contemporary summer days beg to differ).
Ohio’s portion of the once vast prairie in North America is often dubbed the “Prairie Peninsula” because of the way the easternmost edge of the prairie jetted out. At its finest, it covered all of Northwest Ohio and Seneca County before Lake Warren (the predecessor of Lake Erie) turned most of Northwest Ohio into the Great Black Swamp.
A flour mill ad in the Rural Directory Seneca County 1931-1934
These geological events helped form what Ohio is today—an area with very wet springs that often cause substantial flooding and hot, sometimes arid summers. Those features help native prairie plants survive, if they are cared for. The remaining prairies in Ohio are called “mixed oak prairies.”
Most scientists actually credit the Native American tribes for protecting the prairies. According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Natural Areas and Preserves,
“Considering how quickly open grassland can convert to shrubs and saplings and on into young forest, we have to thank in large part Native Americans for keeping western Ohio’s prairies around. They played a pivotal role in maintaining these grassland habitats with their frequent use of fire. Their cultures realized wild game was more attracted to the lush new-growth of freshly burned areas and that the open environment made hunting easier. This led to a consistent fire regime that kept woody invaders at bay and a key aspect to their livelihoods healthy and intact. Without their influence it’s doubtful any substantial tracts of prairie would have persisted up until the time of the European settlement”.
The Native Americans inhabiting Seneca County were still residing in the area when Europeans started settling in the county. An early pioneer names the Olentangy, Wyandot, and Tymochtee and goes on to describe specific features of the Ohio prairies:
“To most the sight of the prairie, or plains, was a novelty. The islands of timber, the tall, coarse grass, prairie hens, wild geese, ducks, prairie owls, etc. attracted their attention. On the south (end) these prairies form the north part of Marion County. Their extreme length, east and west, is 40 miles” (History of Seneca County from the Close of the Revolutionary War to July 1880).
Several publications on Seneca County’s history mention a scattering of prairies in the area. For example, Taway Prairie is written in the Commissioner’s Journal, Book 3. Hull’s Prairie and Sumption Prairie are both record in the Seneca County Families compilation. A report called “Sandusky Site Near Old Fort” makes note of the “prairie openings” that were a few miles from the site. Lastly, an early pioneer in the History of Seneca County is noted saying, “with the exception of the marsh known as Big Spring Prairie in the southwestern part of Big Spring Township, the whole county has long been in a tillable condition”.
A mill in Adrian, Ohio, an unincorporated town in Big Springs Township.
Photo taken from Seneca County History Combination Atlas Map of Seneca Co.
This description alludes to farming practices largely accounting for the disappearance of the prairies in Ohio. The National Geographic Resource Library’s article on prairies explains that prairie soil is great for grains, a type of tall grass. So, farmers in Ohio quickly began cultivating wheat, oats, barley, rye, and even flaxseed.
While Pioneer Mill is the most widely known historic mill in Tiffin, there were dozens of others around the county that processed the harvested grain. In the History of Tiffin’s Breweries and Bottling Works is a J.M. Beckley that operated a mill that produced rye flour. And a fire in Tiffin in 1872 destroyed 20,000 bushels of oats in the Smoyer and Bro. Warehouse. The Junior Order National Home even grew wheat, oats, barley and alfalfa on its 300 acre farm in 1920.
Today if you want to channel your inner Laura Ingalls you have to travel slightly out of the county to immerse yourself in a true prairie (with the exception of any un-mowed privately owned cemeteries that litter the rural areas). The closest is Erie Sands Barrens Nature Preserve in Erie County (part of the Firelands Prairie Region).
There are also 2 protected prairies in Lucas County (the Oak Openings Prairie Region)—Irwin Prairie State Nature Preserve and Kitty Todd Nature Preserve. Their websites inform that July and August are the best “viewing” times as many native prairie plants bloom in late summer and early fall.
Our neighboring Crawford and Wyandot Counties are inside the Sandusky Plains Prairie Region.
Works cited:
“A Geologist Looks at the Natural Vegetation Map of Ohio”, Jane L. Forsyth, Bowling Green State University, Dept. of Geology, https://kb.osu.edu/bitstream/handle/1811/5542/V70N03_180.pdf
History of Seneca County from the Close of the Revolutionary War to July 1880, Transcript Printing, 1880. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/17928/rec/1
HISTORY OF TIFFIN'S BREWERIES AND BOTTLING WORKS, Joseph Terry, 1970. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/23186/rec/1
“Ohio’s Tall Grass Prairies”, Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Natural Areas and Preserves. http://naturepreserves.ohiodnr.gov/natural-areas-preserves-home/post/ohio-s-tall-grass-prairies
Our National Home – Tiffin Ohio 1920, Junior Order of United American Mechanics. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/42504/rec/6
Ohioplants.org/prairie
“Prairies around Ohio” Ohio State University Extension. https://osumarion.osu.edu/initiatives/outreach/prairie/prairies-around-ohio.html
“Prairie” National Geographic Resource Library. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/prairie/
Sandusky Site Near Old Fort, Jonathan E. Bowen, 1983. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/29762/rec/1
Seneca County Commissioner’s Journal, Book 3
Seneca County Ohio, History & Families, Seneca County Genealogical Society, 1998. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/28323/rec/20
Tiffin Fire 1872, Advertiser-Tribune, April 13, 1872. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/38965/rec/1
Tiffin’s 75th Anniversary Souvenir, Zebre and Krammes, 1897. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/22962/rec/2
Seneca County Digital Library, Ohio Memory Project, https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27