When Stephen F. Jones began acquiring this property for his Spring Hill Ranch in 1878, Kansas had been a state for 17 years, and much of the Kansas prairie was already being converted into cropland. Most of the land that now makes up the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve was originally part of the Spring Hill Ranch, later known as the Z Bar, which included fertile bottom lands along Fox Creek for crops and thousands of acres of prime upland prairie for grazing. The Flint Hills were too rocky to plow but were well suited for ranching, so as more of the tallgrass prairie of the American Midwest was plowed under for farming, the Flint Hills remained in grazing and became an island of refuge for many species of prairie plants and animals. Until recently, the tallgrass prairie, a major North American ecosystem, was not represented in the National Park System, but today a portion of this rare landscape has been set aside to be preserved for all generations to enjoy, along with the intertwined history of Native Americans, ranchers, and the American West.