Huffman Prairie is an 113 acre preserve that exists by the happenstance of history. At the turn of the 20th century this prairie was part of a farm owned by Dayton, Ohio banker Torrence Huffman. Beginning in 1904, he allowed Wilbur and Orville Wright to use part of his pasture for the development of their flying machine, the Wright Flyer. In 1917, the U.S. Army established the Wilbur Wright Airfield here, which became Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in 1948. These designations allowed for the preservation of some of the original 3 square mile prairie (1,920 acres), in the form of a buffer around the runways. Otherwise, it is likely that this tallgrass prairie would have succumbed to the farmer’s plow, as the majority of Ohio prairies did. Today the prairie is jointly managed by Wright-Patterson and Five Rivers MetroParks.
We were excited to be venturing to the prairie as the photographer had missed the meadow flowers of summer due to mobility restrictions following her Achilles tendon surgery. Unfortunately the weather was not as promised. We were expecting mostly sunny skies, but instead were greeted by gray clouds, steady winds, and episodes of light rain.
The trailhead is full of information on the history of the property as well as the ecology of prairies. Huffman Prairie is composed of two soil types, wet prairie and mesic, which is dry. It is an almost imperceptible change in altitude that determines the soil moisture content, which then dictates the plant community.
The trailhead and the first part of the trail are on the smaller, wet prairie portion, where there is a concentration of flowering plants, packed in close proximity to each other, as noted in the title photo and below…