Lower Fox Creek Schoolhouse: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve

Regions 3, 4, & 5 Park Cultural Landscapes Program

Inventory Unit Description: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve is located in the heart of the Flint Hills region of east-central Kansas, in Chase County. The 10,894-acre Preserve sits two miles north of Strong City, three miles north of the county seat at Cottonwood Falls, and approximately sixteen miles south of the town of Council Grove. Kansas State Highway 177, a designated Kansas Scenic Byway, runs north/south through the Preserve and provides access to many of its features, including the Lower Fox Creek schoolhouse. The majority of the Preserve is currently owned by the National Park Trust (NPT), a private, nonprofit organization. In 2002, the federal government received title to a portion of the Preserve—2.357 acres associated with the Lower Fox Creek schoolhouse. The Lower Fox Creek schoolhouse component landscape is a historic vernacular landscape. The Preserve occupies a splendid and scenic Flint Hills location, representing one of the last areas of native tallgrass prairie remaining on the continent. Its scenic beauty is a byproduct of its geomorphology, geology, and vegetation. Visitors are drawn to its expansive landscape, romantic pioneer associations, and historic ranching traditions as well as to its value as a managed prairie ecosystem. The Preserve’s compelling combination—wide blue skies, grasses, rock outcrops, historic 19th-century architecture, and rolling hills—holds a unique place in American natural and cultural history (CLR, 2004, 1-1). PERIOD OF SIGNIFICANCE The Spring Hill/Z Bar Ranch was recognized as a National Historic Landmark (NHL) in 1997 for its representation of the transition from open rangeland to the enclosed holdings of large cattle companies during the 1880s and for the architecture of the Spring Hill/Z Bar Ranch headquarters buildings and the Lower Fox Creek schoolhouse. The NHL period of significance extends from 1878 to 1904. The Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve Cultural Landscape Report (TAPR CLR) takes into consideration the local significance as well and recommends the period of significance for the Preserve ca.1856 to 1970. This extended period reflects the understanding that the Preserve’s cultural landscape is a result of a long continuum of cultural use and adaptation to the natural environment (CLR, 2004, 4-3—4-4). INTEGRITY AND SUMMARY OF ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION The Preserve retains much of its historic integrity because of the survival of the expansive prairie landscape, and the evidence of site-specific cultural responses to the natural environment. Both the NHL and local periods of significance are well represented throughout the Preserve. The Preserve continues to reflect many aspects of its agricultural history, particularly the character-defining layout and arrangement of buildings and structures, continuity of agricultural land use, circulation networks, and field and boundary demarcations that give the Preserve its distinct identity (CLR, 2004, 4-33—4-34). The Lower Fox Creek schoolhouse site retains all seven aspects of historic integrity which includes location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association.

Lower Fox Creek Schoolhouse: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve

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