Home > Travel > State Parks > Missouri > Prairie State Park

Acreage: 3,942
Year Acquired: 1980
Activities: camping, picnicking, hiking - backpacking trails


Experience a walk through prairie grasses that tower above your head with a chance to view bison and elk. Tallgrass prairie once covered more than a fourth of Missouri’s landscape. Today less than 1 percent remains. Prairie State Park, at nearly 4,000 acres, preserves Missouri’s largest remaining tallgrass prairie.

The spectacular panoramic vista of Prairie State Park is a sea of grass strewn with the colors of ever-changing wildflowers. In spring, bouquets of yellow-star grass and Indian paintbrush set the stage for the courtship dance of the prairie chicken. Growing taller each day, summer wildflowers include pale purple coneflower, Mead’s milkweed and prairie blazing star. By fall, grasses such as big bluestem and Indian grass may reach 8 feet high.

Enjoy the beauty and solitude of the prairie by hiking one of the park’s four trails, which offer excellent opportunities for bird watching, photography and viewing wildlife and wildflowers. Check on the location of bison and elk at the park office before hiking.

Prairie State Park’s visitor center is designed to enhance the visitor’s “prairie” experience with nature programs, interpretive displays and hands-on exhibits. Visitors may wish to extend the prairie experience by using the picnic area, small campground or primitive backpack camp.