Historic Contexts Study and Phase II Inventory (Downtown Elk River) 2022

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Exhibit Station: 13 Topic: Trailhead Orientation and Bill and Margaret Cox Story: Panel 1: The Legacy of Bill and Margaret Cox Bill and Margaret Cox purchased the oak savanna property in 1938. When the Coxes purchased the property, sheep grazed in the savanna. After they bought it, they pastured their cattle and horses in it. When Bill retired from farming and sold his cattle in 1957, the savanna saw light use from occasional horseback riders, 4-wheel riders, and hunters. Bill and Margaret helped protect the savanna by implementing a conservation plan soon after they purchased the property. (If the map for the plan is available and useful, provide that here to help explain how a conservation plan works.) The Coxes also used the property wisely within its relatively low carrying capacity as a pasture. Since over time, heavy grazing soon destroys native plants almost as completely as if they were plowed under, and the absence of fire or grazing allows savannas to fill in with woody species, the continued survival of numerous native oak savanna plant species is testimony to the fact that the Coxes grazed, but did not over -graze, the savanna and they made no attempts to replace native plants with domestic pasture grasses. (confirm this with Bill) (Provide the Cox donation information here. I don't currently have the detailed information to present here.) Panel 2: Oak Savanna Trail Orientation This panel should contain a map of the trail with major features identified on it, and a brief description of an oak savanna and the savanna partnership. Oak savannas —sometimes called oak openings —are sunny, semi -wooded prairie -type grasslands. Savannas were transition zones between open prairies and shady forests. Savannas were the product of occasional natural fires. They burned often enough that they remained open and allowed only specially adapted trees to survive, but not often enough to destroy the scattered trees that characterized the savanna. Bur oak, Northern pin oak, and white oaks were the most common savanna trees. Bur oak, the most common savanna tree, has thick, tough bar that protected it from the raging prairie fires that killed less fire-resistant plants. Surveyors from the federal government's General Land Office surveyed the area that became Sherburne County in the early 1850s. When the surveyors first walked the land, it was covered by an oak savanna and oak brushland. The major exception was a frequently burned broad strip of prairie grassland that stretched between the Mississippi and the Elk River. Once one of the dominant plant communities in the Midwest, the oak savanna is now one of the most threatened communities in the world. Today, less than .01 % of the original 5.5 Sherburne County Historical Society Heritage Center Interpretive Plan, April 21, 2005, page 91