Lockport Prairie Sunset

Scoured by a torrent of glacial meltwater thousands of years ago, the exposed dolomite bedrock, gravel bars, and wet sloughs of Lockport Prairie host a diverse array of plants, some very rare. Minor changes in elevation in the contours of the former watercourse are now marked by distinct swaths of prairie plants adapted to either drier or wetter conditions. One that prefers its feet wet and was abundant in the once vast wet prairies of the Midwest is prairie cordgrass. With blades uniformly bent in the direction of a past wind event, drifts of it at Lockport Prairie, pocked with spotted Joe-Pye weed and common boneset, echo the movement of flowing water.

Lockport Prairie Nature Preserve was dedicated in 1983.