Native Americans utilized the many plants along the Old Grade for food and medicine. Early white inhabitants also took advantage of the many fruits and plants that grow here, including gooseberries, chokecherries, plums, wild grapes, wild strawberries, buffalo berries, and sumac. Chokecherry shrubs and an old green ash tree over 125 years old are nearby. The tree must have germinated before Levi Hain, the first settler who came to Wessington Springs.