Jim and Helen Merritt, professors at NIU, donated this 40 acre site in 1989; 16 more acres added a few years later. This preserve is about as hilly as DeKalb County gets. There are 2.5 miles of hiking trails, but it might seem like a lot more with all the up and down included. The old one-room Pierce Town Hall building sits near the preserve entrance. Three quarters of the preserve are still cool-season grass pasture intermingled with patches of shrubs and thin patches of prairie species that were over-seeded in the brome-grass slopes. About ten acres of planted prairie and four acres of wetland mitigation expand the native structure and diversity.
Jim and Helen Merritt, professors at NIU, donated this 40 acre site in 1989; 16 more acres added a few years later. This preserve is about as hilly as DeKalb County gets. There are 2.5 miles of hiking trails, but it might seem like a lot more with all the up and down included. The old one-room Pierce Town Hall building sits near the preserve entrance. Three quarters of the preserve are still cool-season grass pasture intermingled with patches of shrubs and thin patches of prairie species that were over-seeded in the brome-grass slopes. About ten acres of planted prairie and four acres of wetland mitigation expand the native structure and diversity.
