James Enright is a Sioux City native, avid hiker, fish keeper, and prairie enthusiast.

I have spent most of my adult life hiking the Loess Hills prairies. The rugged Loess prairies are my home. I was born there, raised there, and I am content to spend the rest of my days hiking those bluffs and prairies.

Just over a year ago, I started sharing pictures of my Loess Hills adventures and information regarding the various preserves I visit on social media. I was surprised by the amount of feedback I received. To my surprise, even many locals were unaware that these preserves existed.

I spent most of the winter and early spring of 2025 hiking and photographing various preserves in the Sioux City area. I visited some of my favorites with snow on the ground: Stone State Park, Heendah Hills, The Broken Kettle Grasslands, Riverside Bluffs, Five Ridge Prairie, The Sioux City Prairie, and others.

Things changed in May 2025 when I began a new career path, which would take me on the road all over northwest Iowa five days per week. I decided to save my hiking posts for long weekend hikes in the hills until a fateful mishap at work left me lost and confused about my whereabouts.

In my first week on the job, I found myself hopelessly lost on a gravel road somewhere north of Larrabee and west of Highway 59. I pulled over, pulled up my map on my phone, and saw Steele Prairie State Preserve on the map. I still had roughly twenty-five minutes of my break left, so I stopped by Steele Prairie and looked around while I tried to figure out the best route back home to Sioux City.

Steele Prairie blew me away. The diverse plant life, the black soil, and the geology were all very different from the dry, steep, wind-blown Loess Hills prairies I was used to. What surprised me most was how many other species of wildflowers I was able to catalog in just over 20 minutes.

I decided right then and there that I would use my lunch breaks to visit new prairies, focus on wildflowers (many of the prairies east of the Loess Hills lack the steep ridges and scenic vistas), and post them for others to see.

I am a conservationist at heart, and one of the easiest ways to raise awareness about the plight of Iowa’s prairies is to let people know that these protected prairies exist in the first place (still, at the time, I had no idea that I would end up visiting or revisiting dozens of Iowa prairies over the course of a summer).

Almost immediately, these posts began to gain engagement, and I started to receive not only feedback but also tips about places I could visit next. The first two recommendations were Fairview Pioneer Cemetery in Ida County and Welsh Church Cemetery in Clay County.

I had never heard of either place, and certainly hadn’t thought to check out cemeteries for prairie remnants. But it made perfect sense. These old burial grounds date back well into the 19th century, so they would likely not have been plowed or grazed like the vast majority of our state. In some places, these small cemeteries are nearly the only prairies left in the county.

So began my quest to locate and explore some of rural northwest Iowa’s prairie cemeteries. I decided to visit at least four cemeteries and make a return trip to compare and contrast the spring and summer wildflowers at each site.

I had tempered expectations because, by then, I had visited Kalsow Prairie, Brewer Prairie, Mori Prairie, Liska-Stanek Prairie, and others that had set a pretty high bar. How grand could a one-acre cemetery prairie be anyway?

I visited my very first prairie cemetery—Welsh Chapel Cemetery near Linn Grove in Clay County—on July 1. Welsh Chapel Cemetery is located directly on Highway 10, along the Glacial Trail Scenic Byway, approximately four miles east of the intersection with Highway 71. Welsh Chapel Cemetery probably saw its first burial sometime in the 1870s.

Welsh cemetery

The cemetery itself was well-kept and saw a decent amount of visitors. There were flowers at the graves, and some of the stones looked clean and even new. The prairie was primarily located on the periphery and featured abundant pink and white colors, with numerous prairie phlox, wild roses, American vetch, wild licorice, yarrow, and meadow anemones.

Prairie phlox

Wild licorice

I made a return trip a few weeks later and saw that the young compass plants and rattlesnake master I saw on my first trip had grown to full size. The abundant pink and white hues were still there, but now the prairie was full of showy tick trefoil and Culver’s root. I’ll be returning to this one often, as it’s conveniently located right on the Glacial Trail Scenic Byway. It’s well-marked and visible from the highway.

Showy tick trefoil

The day after I made my first visit to Welsh Chapel Cemetery, I visited Fairview Pioneer Cemetery in Ida County, near Washta. There are two minimum-maintenance dirt roads leading to the cemetery. Both of these roads would be nearly impossible to navigate without all-wheel drive after a rain. Thankfully, the weather had been dry for a few days, so the road in was passable.

Fairview Pioneer Cemetery is much different from Welsh Chapel. Fairview is primarily maintained as a prairie, not as a cemetery. The graveyard is unmowed, and probably looks much as it did over a century ago.

I only found two graves, both of infants who passed away in the late 1800s. I couldn’t help but feel a bit melancholy as it’s probably been a very long time since any loved ones came to visit these graves. It almost feels like a place trapped in time.

The prairie there is incredible, however. There was prairie sage everywhere, which gave the prairie a white coloration, almost like a dusting of snow.

Prairie sage plants

I also encountered leadplant, compass plant, prairie phlox, white and purple prairie clover, ox-eye sunflowers, New Jersey tea, wild lettuce, and bastard toadflax, which was a neat surprise. I never see it in restored prairies, but only in a handful of the true remnant prairies I’ve visited.

Bastard toadflax

I returned a month later to find that the white coloration hadn’t subsided at all, but had in fact expanded due to the blooming flowering spurge.

There was also quite a bit of gold due to goldenrod coming into bloom. Rough blazing star was beginning to bloom as well, which stood out against the white and gold wildflowers. The best part of my second visit was seeing my first aster of the year.

Flowering spurge (left) with New Jersey Tea (center)

Silky blue aster

There are very few resources that list the majority of Iowa’s prairies, and none that list every prairie cemetery. I spent a considerable amount of time on Google Earth, searching for cemeteries and zooming in to assess their maintenance.

Further, not all “pioneer” cemeteries have remnant prairie, and there are old cemeteries all over northwest Iowa that are still well-maintained, even if the township or church they’re associated with no longer exists. Finding remnant prairie at old cemeteries was more difficult than I had anticipated.

It was almost by accident that I found Steuck Praireland Cemetery. I searched for cemeteries in O’Brien County, expecting to see something closer to Sutherland, but Steuck appeared on the map, and I took a chance and discovered another prairie remnant.

Steuck Prairieland Cemetery is located just southwest of Hartley, on a gravel road, and it’s the smallest of the prairie cemeteries that I visited. There is a sign inside the graveyard that lists all of the burials, including names, dates of birth, and dates of burial. The first person laid to rest there was Anna Marie Steuck, interred in late November of 1892. It is lightly maintained, but not to the same extent as Welsh Chapel Cemetery.

The first thing I noticed about this cemetery—even before I arrived—is that modern wind turbines surround it. You can see and hear them in all directions, which is a stark contrast to the sight of century-old gravestones and the sounds of bees and other insects.

It’s not quite as diverse as the others I’ve visited, and there is a higher concentration of non-native, invasive plants that could pose a future problem. Red Clover, Wild Sweet William, and White Sweet Clover are all present. But there was a decent population of leadplant, wild roses, common and whorled milkweed, wild garlic, and thimbleweed.

Leadplant

I returned about four weeks later to check on summer wildflowers. Whorled milkweed dominates the prairie here in late summer. I see it all over northwest Iowa daily, but not as thick as it is at Steuck. Whorled milkweed typically has a fairly faint, sweet, and lightly floral aroma. But it’s so dense that you can smell it in the air, and it’s pretty enjoyable.

Whorled milkweed

I made plans to visit Newell Catholic Cemetery near Newell in Buena Vista County once I found out that Buena Vista County Conservation maintained it as a prairie. But for nearly two weeks, work took me elsewhere. Finally, I had the opportunity to visit, and I was impressed by what I saw.

The interior of the cemetery is well-maintained, while the exterior features a remnant prairie, much like the one at Welsh Chapel. There were ox-eye sunflowers everywhere as well as butterfly weed, leadplant, white wild indigo, common and whorled milkweed, prairie phlox, white prairie clover, and yellow coneflowers.

Butterfly milkweed

The New Jersey Tea especially struck me. I see New Jersey Tea and Prairie Red Root pretty often, and the specimens at Newell Catholic Cemetery were especially healthy and robust.

New Jersey Tea

On my return visit, I was surprised to find a Buena Vista County Conservation employee mowing the interior of the cemetery. We spoke briefly about local prairies. We agreed that the restored prairie at Gaherty Wildlife Area is really neat and worth a visit. He recommended a couple of other relatively unknown local prairies that I plan to visit soon.

The goldenrod was in bloom, but the New Jersey Tea I was so impressed by just a few weeks ago was barely hanging on. Prairie onion was my favorite find on this visit, but it wasn’t hard to find; there were large patches of prairie onion in several areas.

Prairie onion

Non-native blackberry lilies in the ditch were a reminder that despite the remnant prairie here, it was still a cemetery; they’re probably descended from lilies planted by a loved one. I found lilies at Welsh, too. 

I don’t know how many cemeteries I’ve driven past while searching for remnant prairie this summer—maybe two dozen. Others were close to making the list.

Bur Oak Pioneer Cemetery in Clay County is an oak savanna surrounded by restored prairie and has its own unit in the Kindlespire Complex.

Dunham Prairie Preserve in Akron is situated right on the edge of a cemetery.

Munson Prairie near Manson is landlocked by private property, including a cemetery. Somehow, some way, I will get permission to explore it. Until then, my prairie cemetery quest continues—at least until I can finally locate where Fred Fieldman is buried. I’ve been to Waterman Prairie three times and still haven’t found “Dutch Fred’s Grave.”