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69-706: The Meskwaki suffered damaging wars with the French and their Native American allies in the early 18th century, with one in 1730 decimating the tribe. Euro-American colonization and settlement proceeded in the United States during the 19th century and forced the Meskwaki/Fox south and west into the tall grass prairie in the American Midwest. In 1851 the Iowa state legislature passed an unusual act to allow

138-573: A National Estuarine Research Reserve . Among the wildlife in the Fox River Valley are birds such as mallard ducks and Canada geese , and fish such as walleye . Before the 1950s parts of the Fox River were used for recreational purposes. This only lasted for a short period of time as the water quality deteriorated, and the water was considered unhealthy. The Fox River region has been dominated by dairy farms that benefited from

207-723: A U.S. Superfund site, the Lower Fox River bottom has some sections contaminated with toxic chemicals. These contaminated sediments are the river's current environmental problem. One contaminant of special concern is a group of chemicals called Polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs. The largest deposits of contaminated sediments are traceable to the local paper recycling mills. Beginning in the 1950s, many mills along to Fox River began producing and recycling carbonless copy paper . The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources explains that carbonless copy paper caused PCB pollution in

276-589: A dominant species. The tallgrass prairie biome depends on prairie fires, a form of wildfire , for its survival and renewal. Tree seedlings and intrusive alien species without fire tolerance are eliminated by periodic fires. Such fires may either be set by humans (for example, Native Americans used fires to drive bison and improve hunting, travel, and visibility) or started naturally by lightning. White-tailed deer fecal matter has nutrients for plant biodiversity in Tallgrass prairie area. As its name suggests,

345-424: A large percentage of forbs , such as lead plant ( Amorpha spp.), prairie rosinweed ( Silphium spp.), gayfeathers ( Liatris spp.), sunflowers ( Helianthus spp.), asters ( Aster and Symphyotrichum spp.), coneflowers ( Echinacea spp., and Rudbeckia spp.), and many other species. Technically, prairies have less than 5–11% tree cover. A grass-dominated plant community with 10–49% tree cover

414-682: A member of the party of La Salle , it was also called the Kakaling River. Along the banks is a chain of cities and villages, including Oshkosh , Neenah , Menasha , Appleton , Little Chute , Kimberly , Combined Locks , and Kaukauna . Except for Oshkosh, located on the Upper Fox River near Lake Winnebago , these cities and villages identify as the Fox Cities . Farther north along the Lower Fox River, from its outlet from Lake Winnebago and before its mouth at Lake Michigan, are

483-727: A reservation in east central Kansas in 1845 via the Dragoon Trace . The Dakota Sioux called the Meskwaki who moved west of the Mississippi River the "lost people" because they had been forced to leave their homelands. Some Meskwaki remained hidden in Iowa, with others returning within a few years. Soon after, the U.S. government forced the Sauk to a reservation in Indian Territory present-day Oklahoma. In 1851

552-578: A section of unpaved terrain that permits horseback riding. The Wiouwash State Trail runs concurrent with the Fox River from downtown Oshkosh to Lake Butte des Morts for about 4 miles (6 km). Fishing was a huge aspect of life on the water as many fisheries were set up along the river. This remained large for a short period of time but also was soon limited by water pollution and the depleted amount of fish. Restrictions were placed on how many and what kind of fish could be caught. The Fox River has produced multiple state records in fishing. Currently

621-486: A widespread effort to clean the Fox River. Dredging of the chemicals in the river began on April 28, 2009 and capping started soon after during the summer of 2009. The cleaning project concluded in 2020 and cost an estimated $ 1 billion. The Fox River will continue to be monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for many years following

690-656: Is a savanna . After the steel plow was invented by John Deere in 1833, this fertile soil became one of America's most important resources. Over 95% of the original tallgrass prairie is now farmland . The tallgrass prairie survives in areas unsuited to plowing: the rocky hill country of the Flint Hills , which runs north to south through east-central Kansas ; the eastern fringe of the Red River Valley ( Tallgrass Aspen Parkland ) in Manitoba and Minnesota;

759-466: Is an ecosystem native to central North America . Historically, natural and anthropogenic fire , as well as grazing by large mammals (primarily bison ) provided periodic disturbances to these ecosystems, limiting the encroachment of trees, recycling soil nutrients, and facilitating seed dispersal and germination. Prior to widespread use of the steel plow, which enabled large scale conversion to agricultural land use, tallgrass prairies extended throughout

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828-405: Is capable of supporting significant biodiversity. Parts of the ecoregion are among the "top ten ecoregions for reptiles, birds, butterflies, and tree species. Tallgrass species are found in the understory layer." Oak ( blackjack oak ( Quercus marilandica ) and post oak ( Q. stellata )) and hickory tree species occur in some areas, but generally in moderate densities. Bison ( Bison bison ) were

897-653: Is the translation of Rivière aux Renards (French for River of the Foxes ), given by explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette because it went through the territory of the Meskwaki people, called Renards in French. In the Menominee language , the river is known as Meskwahkīw-Sīpiah , which means "Red Earth River". In the Ho-Chunk language (Winnebago, Hoocąk, Hocąk) , Fox River is known as Nionigera . According to

966-727: The Coteau des Prairies , which extends from South Dakota through Minnesota and into Iowa ; and the far north portion of Oklahoma . In Oklahoma, the tallgrass prairie has been maintained by ranchers, who saw the hat-high grass as prime grazing area for cattle . The 39,000-acre (158 km ) Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Osage County, Oklahoma , and the somewhat smaller 10,900-acre (44.1 km ) Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Kansas, attempt to maintain this ecosystem in its natural form. They have reintroduced plains bison to

1035-538: The Algic language family , and thus descended from Proto-Algic . The Meskwaki and Sauk peoples are two distinct tribal groups. Linguistic and cultural connections between the two tribes have made them often associated in history. Under US government recognition treaties, officials treat the Sac (anglicized Sauk term) and Meskwaki as a single political unit, despite their distinct identities. The Meskwaki gained control of

1104-615: The American Midwest and smaller portions of southern central Canada , from the transitional ecotones out of eastern North American forests, west to a climatic threshold based on precipitation and soils, to the southern reaches of the Flint Hills in Oklahoma, to a transition into forest in Manitoba. They were characteristically found in parts of the upper Mississippi River Valley, in the central forest-grasslands transition ,

1173-616: The Black Hawk War over homelands in Illinois. After the Black Hawk War of 1832, the United States officially combined the two tribes into a single group known as the Sac & Fox Confederacy for treaty-making purposes. The United States persuaded the Sauk and Meskwaki to sell all their claims to land in Iowa in a treaty of October 1842. They moved to land west of a temporary line (Red Rock Line) in 1843. They were removed to

1242-581: The Fox and Wolf rivers. Nine hundred Fox (about 300 warriors and the remainder mostly women and children) tried to break out in Illinois to reach the English and Iroquois to the east, but they were greatly outnumbered by a combined force of French and hundreds of allied Native Americans. On September 9, 1730, most of the Fox warriors were killed; many women and children were taken captive into Indian slavery or killed by

1311-641: The Fox River system in eastern and central Wisconsin. This river became vital for the colonial New France fur trade through the interior of North America between northern French Canada , via the Mississippi River, and the French ports on the Gulf of Mexico . As part of the Fox–Wisconsin Waterway , the Fox River allowed travel from Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes via Green Bay to

1380-810: The Indian Removal Act of 1830 passed by Congress, authorizing US removal of eastern American Indians to lands west of the Mississippi River. The act was directed mainly at the Five Civilized Tribes in the American Southeast, but it was also used against tribes in what was then called the Northwest as well, the area east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio River. Some Meskwaki were involved with Sac warriors in

1449-480: The Mississippi River system. At first European contact in 1698, the French estimated the number of Meskwaki as about 6,500. By 1712, the number of Meskwaki had declined to 3,500. The Meskwaki fought against the French, in what are called the Fox Wars, for more than three decades (1701–1742) to preserve their homelands. The Meskwaki resistance to French encroachment was highly effective. The First Fox War with

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1518-863: The National Natural Landmark , Gensburg-Markham Prairie . Tallgrass prairie remnants can also be found among nature preserves within the Hobart Nature District , located in Hobart, Indiana just outside of Chicago. The original extent of tallgrass prairie in Canada was the 2,300-square-mile (6,000 km ) plain in the Red River Valley , southwest of Winnipeg in Manitoba ( see map). While most of Manitoba's tallgrass prairie has been destroyed through cultivation and urban expansion, relatively small areas persist. One of

1587-771: The Portage Canal , which was the first waterway between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River . After flowing past Montello , the river goes northeast until reaching Lake Butte des Morts . Here it is joined by the tributary Wolf River before entering the west side of Lake Winnebago at Oshkosh . The Upper Fox flows for a total of 142 miles (229 km). The Lower Fox begins at the north end of Lake Winnebago, where it flows north past Neenah , Menasha , and Appleton as it begins its 40-mile (64 km) course northeast towards Lake Michigan. The river drops around 164 feet (50 m) over this short stretch. Prior to

1656-560: The United States . It is the principal tributary of Green Bay , and via the Bay, the largest tributary of Lake Michigan . The city of Green Bay , one of the first European settlements in the interior of North America , is on the river at its mouth on lower Green Bay. Hydrographers divide the Fox into two distinct sections, the Upper Fox River, flowing from its headwaters in south-central Wisconsin northeasterly into Lake Winnebago , and

1725-483: The central tall grasslands , the upper Midwest forest-savanna transition , and the northern tall grasslands ecoregions . They flourished in areas with rich loess soils and moderate rainfall around 30-35 inches (700–900 mm) per year. To the east were the fire-maintained eastern savannas . In the northeast, where fire was infrequent and periodic windthrow represented the main source of disturbance, beech-maple forests dominated. In contrast, shortgrass prairie

1794-461: The first tallgrass prairie restoration was the 1936 Curtis Prairie at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum . The UW Arboretum was the center of tallgrass prairie research through the first half of the 20th century, with the development of the nearby Greene Prairie, Aldo Leopold Shack and Farm and pioneering techniques like prescribed burning . The latter half of the 20th century saw

1863-666: The 1980s, spurred by the publication of a book of appreciation, John Madson 's Where the Sky Began: Land of the Tallgrass Prairie (1982). Nonprofit organizations throughout the former tallgrass prairie region began to reserve or restore small remnants of native prairie. For example, the Native Prairies Association of Texas was founded in 1986 to locate, restore, and protect prairies in Texas;

1932-404: The 19th century. Historically the Meskwaki used Triodanis perfoliata as an emetic in tribal ceremonies to make one "sick all day long," smoking it at purification and other spiritual rituals. They smudge Symphyotrichum novae-angliae and use it to revive unconscious people. They used Agastache scrophulariifolia , an infusion of the root used as a diuretic , also using a compound of

2001-538: The City of Appleton and Neenah-Menasha Sewerage Commission. Several settlements ensured that the responsible parties paid for a large sum of the cleaning project costs and other restoration efforts. A settlement, reached in 2019, required that NCR Corporation, P.H. Glatfelter Company, and Georgia-Pacific Consumer Products LP cover the cost of all future cleaning efforts. Since the late 19th century, dredging of river bottom sediments has been done to allow large ships to enter

2070-635: The Fox River and Lake Michigan. The federal government banned PCBs in 1979 due to their environmental threat to humans and other wildlife. The U.S. government and State of Wisconsin filed suit on October 14, 2010, against nine paper companies and two municipalities for their failure to pay for PCB cleanup actions. The companies named in the suit were NCR Corporation , Appleton Papers, CBC Coating, Kimberly-Clark , Menasha Corporation, NewPage Corporation , Glatfelter , U.S. Paper Mills ( Sonoco ) and WTM (Wisconsin Tissue Mills). The local agencies sued were

2139-408: The Fox River area as early as 7000 BC. Prior to European settlement in the late 17th century, the shores of the Fox River and Green Bay were home to roughly half the estimated 25,000 Native Americans who lived in what is today Wisconsin. The first Europeans to reach the Fox were French , beginning with explorer Jean Nicolet in 1634. In 1673 explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet canoed up

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2208-436: The Fox River flows roughly south to north and descends through a height equal to that of Niagara Falls . As such, the Fox River was an ideal location for constructing powerful sawmills that made the Fox River area famous for its paper industry. A negative side effect of this industrialization was the dumping of hazardous material byproducts of the paper mills. To repair the ecological damage from this toxic waste, there has been

2277-434: The Fox River. The contaminated sediment has been used since the 1960s to fill local wetlands, causing adverse effects on wildlife and plants. After 1978 it was used to develop an off-shore engineered holding area called Renard Isle , also known as Kidney Island. Renard Isle was capped in 2015 and its ownership was transferred to Brown County in 2017. There have been several proposed plans for the land, including turning it into

2346-562: The Fox to buy land and stay in the state. Other Sac and Fox were removed to Indian territory in what became Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska. In the 21st century, two federally recognized tribes of "Sac and Fox" have reservations , and one has a settlement . The name is derived from the Meskwaki creation myth, in which their culture hero , Wisaka , created the first humans out of red clay. They called themselves Meshkwahkihaki in Meskwaki, meaning "the Red-Earths". The name Fox later

2415-498: The Fox-Wolf watershed drains an area of about 6,429 square miles (16,650 km ). The Fox had an average annual discharge of 5,200 ft /s (150 m /s) into Green Bay. The highest recorded flow on the Fox near its mouth was 33,800 ft /s (957 m /s) on June 3, 1990. Tributaries of the Fox River include East River, Fond du Lac River , Wolf River, White River, Mecan River, Grand River, and Montello River . The name

2484-549: The French allies. The Sauk and Meskwaki allied in 1735 in defense against the French and their allied Indian tribes. Descendants spread through southern Wisconsin, and along the present-day Illinois - Iowa border. In 1829 the US government estimated there were 1,500 Meskwaki along with 5,500 Sac (or Sauk). Both tribes relocated southward from Wisconsin into Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri. There are accounts of Meskwaki as far south as Pike County, Illinois . The Anishinaabe peoples called

2553-552: The French lasted from 1712 to 1714. This first Fox War was purely economic in nature, as the French wanted rights to use the river system to gain access to the Mississippi. After the Second Fox War of 1728, the Meskwaki were reduced to some 1500 people. They found shelter with the Sac, but French competition carried to that tribe. In the Second Fox War, the French increased their pressure on the tribe to gain access to

2622-649: The Germans in North Africa . Twenty-seven Meskwaki men, then 16% of the Meskwaki population in Iowa, enlisted together in the U.S. Army in January 1941. The modern Meskwaki Settlement in Tama County maintains a casino , tribal schools, tribal courts, tribal police and a public works department. Today the three federally recognized Sac and Fox tribes are: Tall grass prairie The tallgrass prairie

2691-478: The Iowa legislature passed an unprecedented act to allow the Meskwaki to buy land even though they had occupied it by right before and stay in the state. American Indians had not generally been permitted to do so, as the U.S. Government had said that tribal Indians were legally not US citizens. Only citizens could buy land. In 1857, the Meskwaki purchased the first 80 acres (320,000 m) in Tama County ; Tama

2760-472: The Lower Fox River is much cleaner than it was before 1972. However, according to other measures of pollution (e.g., phosphorus , estrogenic compounds, discarded pharmaceuticals ), the river waters are slightly more contaminated than before 1972. As a result, debate over the river's contamination continues between environmentalists, the paper industry, Indian tribes, and elected officials at the federal, state, and local levels. While not officially designated as

2829-404: The Lower Fox River that produce more than five million tons of paper per year and employ around 50,000 people. The principal cities located in this valley are Green Bay, Appleton, Neenah, Menasha, De Pere, and Kaukauna. Although Oshkosh is a major city in the chain, active production of paper products is no longer located there. In the section between Lake Winnebago and Green Bay at Lake Michigan,

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2898-481: The Lower Fox River, flowing from Lake Winnebago northeasterly to lower Green Bay. Together, the two sections give the Fox River a length of 182 miles (293 km). Counting the distance through Lake Winnebago gives a total of 200 miles (322 km). The river's name is the English translation of the French name for the Meskwaki people in the 17th century. The river was part of the famous 1673–74 expedition of Jolliet and Marquette , in which they went on to become

2967-583: The Meskwaki Odagaamii , meaning "people on the other shore", referring to their territories south of the Great Lakes. The French had adopted use of this name, and transliterated its spelling into their pronunciation system as Outagamie . This name was later used by Americans for today's Outagamie County, Wisconsin . The Meskwaki and Sac were forced to leave their territory by land-hungry American settlers. President Andrew Jackson signed

3036-615: The Mississippi River. During the French colonization of the Americas , this route was used frequently by fur traders . French-Canadian men who established homes on the Fox River married First Nation women, producing mixed-race descendants who were generally raised within the matrilineal cultures of their mothers and identified with the tribes. In Canada, the Metis of the Red River of

3105-669: The Mississippi in Iowa ". The jurisdictional status was unclear. The tribe had formal federal recognition with eligibility for Bureau of Indian Affairs services. It also had a continuing relationship with the State of Iowa due to the tribe's private ownership of land, which was held in trust by the governor. For the next 30 years, the Meskwaki were virtually ignored by federal as well as state policies, which generally benefited them. Subsequently, they lived more independently than tribes confined to Indian reservations regulated by federal authority. To resolve this jurisdictional ambiguity, in 1896

3174-747: The North are classified as a distinct ethnicity because of their shared culture. The Fox-Wisconsin Waterway's importance continued into the 1850s, when the Fox and Wisconsin Improvement Company built locks and dams on the Fox and the Portage Canal to connect it to the Wisconsin River at Portage. The company was hoping to establish Green Bay as a port city to rival Chicago by making the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway into

3243-589: The State of Iowa ceded to the Federal government all jurisdiction over the Meskwaki. By 1910, the Sac and Meskwaki together totaled only about 1,000 people. During the 20th century, they began to recover their cultures. By the year 2000, their numbers had increased to nearly 4,000. In World War II , Meskwaki men enlisted in the U.S. Army. Several served as code talkers , along with Navajo and some other speakers of uncommon languages. Meskwaki men used their language to keep Allied communications secret in actions against

3312-525: The cities of De Pere and Green Bay (located at the lake), and the villages of Ashwaubenon and Allouez ; although they are in the Fox River Valley, this grouping of cities and villages does not refer to themselves as Fox Cities. Since the recession of the glaciers that once covered much of Wisconsin , the Fox River has supported several Native American cultures, and has been important for its fisheries, waterfowl, wild rice , forests, and water. Archaeologists have claimed that indigenous peoples lived in

3381-577: The cleaning project's completion. The high concentration of paper mills and other industry along the Lower Fox has historically been the source of much pollution of the river. Public debate about this contamination began as early as 1923, but little was done to improve the river until the federal Clean Water Act was passed in 1972. Much effort has since been put into cleaning the Fox, but problems still exist. According to some measures of pollution (e.g. dissolved oxygen , pollution-tolerant worm counts),

3450-541: The construction of European-style dams after 1850, the river had many sizable rapids. The Lower Fox ends after flowing through the city of Green Bay and into Lake Michigan through Green Bay . The Fox River complex is one of only a few north-flowing river systems in North America east of the Mississippi River; the only other one is the Genesee River of Upstate New York and Pennsylvania . Altogether,

3519-491: The first Europeans to traverse the upper Mississippi River . A particular set of cities on the lower Fox River identify themselves as the " Fox Cities ". The Upper Fox River begins as a small stream northeast of Pardeeville . It flows west by southwest towards Portage and comes within 2 miles (3 km) of the Wisconsin River before turning north. However, the Fox River and the Wisconsin River are connected via

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3588-563: The group currently protects about 2,780 acres (11.3 km ) of Texas prairies. The Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie , founded in 1996 near Elwood, Illinois , was, as of 2006, the largest tallgrass prairie restoration area in the United States. In Minnesota, Glacial Ridge National Wildlife Refuge was established in 2004. The core of the refuge is a preserved 5,000-acre (20 km ) tallgrass prairie remnant, and an additional 30,000 acres (121 km ) are either in

3657-479: The growth of tallgrass prairie restoration beyond Wisconsin borders, with projects in Illinois such as at Knox College , College of DuPage , Morton Arboretum , and Fermi National Laboratory , and projects in Iowa including Grinnell College 's Conard Environmental Research Area . These major tallgrass restoration projects marked restoration’s growth from isolated studies to widespread practice. Tallgrass prairie restoration efforts picked up wider public recognition in

3726-626: The largest blocks of remaining tallgrass prairie in Manitoba is protected by several conservation partners in a conservation area called the Tallgrass Aspen Parkland. The Manitoba Tall Grass Prairie Preserve , which occupies small portions of the municipalities of Stuartburn and Emerson – Franklin , forms a part of the Tallgrass Aspen Parkland. This preserve contains about 4,000 ha (9,900 acres) of tallgrass prairie, aspen parkland , and wetlands. A small pocket of less than 1,200 acres (5 km ) of tallgrass prairie remains in

3795-576: The mid-19th century, when Wisconsin was a leading producer of wheat , several flour mills were built along the river to harness its abundant water power. During the 1860s, as Wisconsin's wheat production declined, these flour mills were replaced by a growing number of paper mills , which processed the great amount of timber being harvested from the forests. The Lower Fox proved an ideal location for paper production, owing to its proximity to lumbering areas that could supply wood pulp to make paper. Several well-known paper companies were founded in cities along

3864-403: The most obvious features of the tallgrass prairie are tall grasses , such as indiangrass ( Sorghastrum nutans ), big bluestem ( Andropogon gerardi ), little bluestem ( Schizachyrium scoparium ), and switchgrass ( Panicum virgatum ), which average between 4.9 and 6.6 ft (1.5 and 2 m) tall, with occasional stalks as high as 8.2 to 9.8 ft (2.5 to 3 m). Prairies also include

3933-506: The plant heads medicinally. They eat the fruits of Viburnum prunifolium raw and cook them into a jam. They make the flowers of Solidago rigida into a lotion and use them on bee stings and for swollen faces. Meskwaki are of Algonquian origin from the prehistoric Woodland period culture area. The Meskwaki language is a dialect of the Sauk-Fox-Kickapoo language spoken by the Sauk, Meskwaki, and Kickapoo . It belongs to

4002-677: The prairie's demise were the confined grazing pattern of European cattle versus bison, the near-extermination of prairie dogs, and the plowing and cultivation of the land, which breached tallgrass root systems and interrupted reproduction. Furthermore, extensive tile drainage has changed the soil's water content and hydrodynamics, and ongoing soil erosion results in its increasing loss. Estimates differ of how much original tallgrass prairie survives, ranging from less than 1% mostly in "scattered remnants found in pioneer cemeteries, restoration projects, along highways and railroad rights-of-way, and on steep bluffs high above rivers" to 4%. Tallgrass prairie

4071-458: The principal shipping route between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River. This goal was never achieved, as the Upper Fox remained too shallow for significant shipping even after damming and dredging. In addition, the lakes that the narrow, winding stream flows through were frozen solid for five months every year. The Lower Fox was developed instead as a center of riverfront industry. During

4140-400: The process of restoration or will be soon. According to The Nature Conservancy , so far, 100 wetlands have been restored, and 8,000 acres (32 km ) of land has been seeded with native plant species. Several books have been published on tallgrass prairie restoration, including: Fox River (Wisconsin) The Fox River is a river in eastern Wisconsin in the Great Lakes region of

4209-481: The rich soil and plentiful water supply. The 25-mile (40 km) Fox River State Recreational Trail is part of the Brown County Park System. The trailhead is in the city of Green Bay where 7 miles (11 km) of paved trail follow the Fox River south through the city of De Pere . Biking, walking, jogging, and rollerblading are among the most popular activities on the trail. The trail also has

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4278-418: The river as far as Portage. Here they made the short portage from the Fox to the Wisconsin River and then canoed on toward the Mississippi River . They established an important water route between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River known as the Fox–Wisconsin Waterway . It was likely long used by Native Americans prior to European encounter, as they had extensive cross-country trading routes related to

4347-665: The river, including Kimberly-Clark , Northern Paper Mills (makers of Quilted Northern), and the Hoberg Paper Company (manufacturer of Charmin ). The Volcan Street Plant on the Fox river in Appleton was the first Edison hydroelectric station and one of the first in the world. It was put into service in 1882 within the building of the Appleton Paper and Pulp Company. The Lower Fox remains a major area for paper production . There are 24 paper and pulp mills along

4416-511: The soil through urine and feces. Prairie dogs , a type of squirrel, considered to be a keystone species , dug tunnels that "aerated the soil and channeled water several feet below the surface". For 5,000 to 8,000 years, more than 240 million acres (970,000 km ) of prairie grasslands were a major feature of the landscape. Between 1800 and 1930, the vast majority was destroyed. Settlers transformed what they named "the Great American Desert" or "The Inland Sea" into farmland. Major reasons for

4485-442: The southwest corner of Windsor, Ontario , protected by Ojibway Park , and Spring Garden Area of Natural Scientific Interest, along with the interconnected parks: Black Oak Heritage Park , Ojibway Prairie Provincial Nature Reserve , and the Tallgrass Prairie Heritage Park . Aside from the Provincial Nature Reserve, all are operated by the City of Windsor's Parks and Recreation. Considered the birthplace of ecological restoration ,

4554-459: The vast expanses of grass. Other U.S. preserves include Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie in Illinois, Broken Kettle Preserve and Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge in Iowa, Konza Prairie in Kansas, and Prairie State Park in Missouri. In eastern North Dakota is Sheyenne National Grassland , the only national grassland on the tallgrass prairie. Also, several small tallgrass prairie reservations are in Cook County , Illinois , including

4623-406: Was derived from a French mistake during the colonial era: hearing a group of Indians identify as "Fox", the French applied what was a clan name to the entire tribe who spoke the same language by calling them "les Renards." Later the English and Anglo-Americans adopted the French name by using its translation in English as "Fox." This name was also used officially by the United States government from

4692-402: Was named for Taimah , a Meskwaki chief of the early 19th century. Many Meskwaki later moved to the Meskwaki Settlement near Tama . The U.S. government tried to force the tribe back to the Kansas reservation by withholding treaty-right annuities. Ten years later, in 1867, the U.S. finally began paying annuities to the Meskwaki in Iowa. They recognized the Meskwaki as the " Sac and Fox of

4761-471: Was typical in the western Great Plains , where rainfall is less frequent, and soils are less fertile. Due to expansive agricultural land use, very little tallgrass prairie remains. Retreating glaciers deposited the parent material for soil in the form of till , i.e. unsorted sediment, about 10,000 years ago. Wind-dropped loess and organic matter accumulated, resulting in deep levels of topsoil . Animals such as bison, elk, deer, and rabbits added nitrogen to

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