This region in Kansas is one of the great grazing lands of the world. Thousands of buffalo, antelope, and elk once roamed here. After the Civil War and the wild days of the Texas cattle drives, it became famous as a feeding ground for beef cattle. Today, over 300,000 head are shipped in each spring from Southwestern states, more than the yearly average to all Kansas in trail-driving days. Every summer a million head, counting local herds, are fattened on its nutritious grasses. These pastures contain four and a half million acres and extend from north to south across Kansas in a narrow oval two counties wide. They comprise the last large segment of true prairie that once stretched from the forests of the East to the Great Plains. Popularly known as the Flint Hills, the region is better named for the two predominate grasses, Big and Little Bluestem, which are so rich that few other regions can support so many cattle concentrated in one place.