Huffman Prairie: A Little History

On Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Greene County Ohio is Ohio's largest remnant tallgrass prairie.  The site is 112 acres and an Ohio Natural Landmark.

My familiarity with the prairie prairie remnant adjacent to started in 1984.  I had been looking at and compiling old surveyor records of northwest Greene County, and those records showed significant stretches of prairies and wetlands in the region.  Here is a map from the project that was published in the Ohio Journal of Science back then.

You can download the study here: https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/1811/23075/V085N3_125.pdf

The big blob on the left side of the map was, in 1802, a large open tallgrass prairie on the east grading  to a large alkaline fen/sedge meadow further west.  

Back in the early 1980's I caught "prairie fever" and started learning all I could about the prairies that once existed in Greene County and Ohio.  I started driving my rusty Nova around and looking around the areas where the first land surveyors documented prairies in 1802 to see if there were any remnants of these old prairies and wetlands.  To my surprise there were quite a few, some of them in great shape.  The biggest one used to be on what is now Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.  Back then you couldn't just drive your car out there, it was on a secure military installation.  Fortunately, my dad worked on the base and had a car with a sticker, and he agreed to haul me around and look for prairie plants on a nice September day.  We didn't see much of anything until we turned onto Pylon Rd., and after several hundred yards there was big clump of big bluestem grass in the ditch on the left side.  I felt like I had found King Tut's tomb!  Dad was not so impressed.  He directed my attention to the right side of the road and asked "what about all that over there"?  There, stretching over a large field was field with big swatches of bluestem and indian grass swaying in the breeze.  Fortunately, I was too young for a heart attack, but it was a thrill.  It was then we noticed a big yellow tractor with a mower going through the field mowing the prairie down. 

When he passed near us I sheepishly flagged the fellow down.  He got out of the tractor and dad and I did our best to explain why these weeds should be left standing.  He let me take his picture.   He contacted his boss, who came out to see who these crazies were.  Here is a picture of dad with the poor fellow, who was pretty laid back about the whole thing.

We got some names of who to contact at the Base about the "discovery" and started pestering them to recognize and protect the prairie.  I was put in contact with a young woman named Terri Lucas who was the Base's Natural Resources Manager.  Terry was quite intrigued and interested.  She even applied to have the prairie designated as a State Natural Landmark through the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.  Her efforts paid off and Landmark status was formally awarded in 1986.  It didn't give a legal protection to the site, but it did identify it as important and showed Wright-Patt's commitment to protecting and managing it.

A birder/photographer friend of mine, Mark Dillon, took an interest in the site.  Mark discovered that the big prairie was also a haven for rare nesting grassland birds like bobolinks and Henslow sparrows. He took some beautiful pictures documenting them.  Paul Knoop wrote an article in his newspaper column about the Prairie, which helped raise awareness of the site.

Wright-Patterson officials took the remarkable step of actually surveying the prairie and documenting it on their facility maps.  When this was accomplished 108 acres was set aside to manage for prairie management and restoration.  

Something that is kind of confusing about Huffman Prairie is that there are two of them.  The "natural" site is the Huffman Prairie State Natural Landmarka, established in 1986.

 The one that most people visit is the Huffman Prairie Flying Field, a component of the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park.  The two are adjacent to one another and share a similar natural and human history.

Orville and Wilbur Wright at Huffman Prairie (Flying Field) in 1904

They both were once part of the 3 square-mile prairie/fen complex that filled that part of the Mad River Valley.  In 1896 they were both owned by Dayton banker Torrence Huffman.  In 1904 an 84-acre portion of Mr. Huffman's land was being used to pasture livestock.  Mr. Huffman granted Orville and Wilbur Wright permission to use the pasture for a flying field, so long as they didn't let the animals out.

The Huffman Prairie Flying Field is a component of the Dayton Aviation History National Historical Park which was established in 2004.  It is where the Wright Brother learned to turn, control, and effectively pilot the worlds first airplanes.  It is well marked with National Park interpretive signs along a maintained path that effectively  explains the important events that happened on this old prairie.

 A reproduction of the Wrights 1904 storage hanger and launch on the Flying Field and adjacent to the Natural Landmark.

Huffman Prairie Conservation Area is marked by several interpretive signs, a kiosk, and a brochure.

Restored prairie wildflowers with the restored 1904 hanger in the background


The land that is now the Flying Field and a large portion of the lowest land on WPAFB used to be an alkaline bog, or fen.  It has now been drained and the original vegetation mostly destroyed.  Back in 1904 the Wright Brothers had to deal with a very hummocky terrain, likely from the remains of the big sedge clumps that lived in the wetland.  Similar "sedge meadows" can still be found in the Beaver Creek Wetlands, but this one has been lost.

Hummocky terrain on the Wright's Flying Field in 1904.  These clumps were likely the remains of the hummock sedge, or Carex stricta.

Living Carex stricta sedge meadow in Beaver Creek Wetlands

The Huffman Prairie State Natural Lanmark has been a restoration project for over 30 years.  Organizations including WPAFB, Fiver Rivers MetroParks, The Nature Conservancy, and US Fish and Wildlife Service have done much to restore the site, which had been damaged by years of agricultural and military use.

Controlled burn bu WPAFB and US Fish and Wildlife personnel in 2016

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