In northeastern Kansas, before it was disturbed by the arrival of
white settlers in the eighteen fifties, tall grass prairies and
deciduous forests were both represented. These two contrasting types
of vegetation overlapped widely in an interdigitating pattern which
was determined by distribution of moisture, soil types, slope exposure
and various biotic factors.
The early explorers who saw this region, and the settlers who came
later, left only incomplete descriptions, which were usually vague as
to the locality and the species of plants represented. As a result,
there is but little concrete information as to the precise boundaries
between the forests and grasslands, and opinions differ among
ecologists. No representative sample of either type remains.
It may be assumed that the plant communities existing one hundred
years ago and earlier were far more stable than those of the present
that have resulted from man's disruptive activities. This stability
was only relative, however. Within the last few thousand years since
the final withdrawal of the Wisconsinan ice sheet, fairly rapid and
continual change must have occurred, as a result of changing climate,
the sudden extinction of various large, dominant mammals, and finally
the impact of successive aboriginal cultures.
The land north of the Kansas River had been a reserve for the Delaware
Indians. This land was thrown open to settlement as a result of two
separate purchases from the tribe, in 1860 and 1866. The alluvial
bottomlands were fertile and soon were under cultivation.