Chase County & The Bluestem
The vast prairie which surrounds this site is
typical of the Bluestem pasture region more commonly
known as the Flint Hills. Named for its predominant
grasses, the area extends from Oklahoma almost to
Nebraska in a narrow oval two counties wide which
covers some four and a half million acres.
These pastures comprise the last large segment of true prairie which once stretched from the forests of the East to the Great Plains. Today almost a million head of cattle are fattened each year on these nutritious grazing lands. The area normally receives more cattle annually from the Southwest than did all Kansas during an average season in the colorful era of the Texas drives, 1866-1885, when herds were driven north to Kansas railheads.
In the hills 14 miles southwest of this marker Knute Rockne, famed Notre Dame football coach, was killed in an airplane crash, March 31, 1931.
Marker beside U.S. 50 near