COTTONWOOD FALLS -- The Tallgrass Prairie of North America once covered an area that today comprises 15 US states and three Canadian provinces in the middle of the continent. Natural fires and grazing by vast herds of bison swept the plains clean of trees after the last ice age, and in the late summers Big Bluestem grass grew to more than 8 feet.
Now civilization has shrunk the Tallgrass Prairie -- the part never settled or allowed to forest, or ever broken by a plow -- to about 3 percent of its original reach. And most of that is found in a north-south strip of rolling plains in the Flint Hills of Kansas.
Named for the flinty rock that is heavily present, it is a relatively young grassland compared with Africa, where eons have seen a development of diverse species like giraffes and elephants. But a recently noted species is turning up here in greater numbers: the tourist.
Kansas is known by politicians as a flyover state, by cross-country travelers as the stretch where a 400-mile drive seemed like 800, and by much of the world as the black- and- white place where a tornado snatched up Dorothy Gale from her family farm and launched her toward the colorful land of Oz.
Economies change, and often the landscape goes along with them. The beauty of the Flint Hills is that they look almost exactly as they did several thousand years ago -- and that says a lot, because on a clear day , from a high pasture, under rich blue sky and jagged white clouds, you can see 30 miles in any direction.
Farmers settled here in the mid-19th century. Now, as the family farm goes the way of the bison, agritourism is supplementing its survival.
Working farms and ranches now host tours. Everett and Hazel Zimmerman in Alta Vista operate Ag Heritage Park, which boasts 20 combines and an 1800s school house, with tours by appointment, all handicapped-accessible. The Clover Cliff Ranch in Elmdale is now also a bed -and -breakfast. Antique s shops are open in some small towns where many of the other buildings are shuttered. As elsewhere across the United States, places here are rediscovering and celebrating their pasts with festivals and anniversaries.
Flint Hills tourism focuses on history, nature, the outdoors, and recreation , and is increasingly supported by restored hotels and inns, art galleries and gift shops, and museums.
Of course, along with museums and memories, there is food.
The Historic Hays House Restaurant & Tavern in Council Grove bills itself as the oldest continuously operated restaurant west of the Mississippi River.
Samantha Patterson, a native and a student at Kansas State University, 45 minutes away in Manhattan, sometimes works at the Council Grove tourism office. ``I have professors who come down to the Hays House for the strawberry pie," she said.
The spine of the Flint Hills is state Highway 177, a north-south route that includes the first scenic byway in the state, now one of 126 on the National Scenic Byways roster. From Manhattan south to Strong City, a dot along Highway 50 but host to the annual three-day Flint Hills Rodeo in June, is about an hour's drive. Along the way, the road not only offers rare vistas, as the two-lane blacktop rises over gentle hills to 1,500 feet above sea level, but also provides access to most of the tourist sites in the region. The Flint Hills Scenic Byway is the stretch from Council Grove to Calloday.
``The Flint Hills do not take your breath away," wrote Jim Hoy, a Western folklorist and professor of English at Emporia State University . ``They give you a chance to catch it."
In Wamego, about 20 minutes from Manhattan, the folks who live on the plains are exacting reciprocal exploitation from the same Hollywood that defined the state back in 1939. The Oz Museum has more than 2,000 artifacts from the ``The Wizard of Oz" and a big gift shop (T-shirt: ``Life Hasn't Been the Same Since That House Fell on My Sister").
For more authentic history, there is the Columbian Theatre next door, with murals from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, which has been restored for $1.8 million as a home for the arts. Some may want to stop at the Beecher Bible and Rifle Church, which got its name from the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's contribution of money for rifles for a group of Connecticut citizens who emigrated to Kansas Territory to support the free soil and antislavery movement there.
Also near Manhattan is the Konza Prairie Biological Station, 8,600 acres of privately donated land now mostly owned by the nonprofit Nature Conservancy, and operated for research purposes by the Division of Biology at Kansas State.
``Konza is not a tourist area," warns Eva A. Horne, an assistant professor who oversees 150 research projects, ranging from carbon dioxide monitoring to census counts of plants and wildlife. But there are 14 miles of hiking trails, including the five-mile Kings Creek Loop, which offers a glimpse at a rare stream virtually unaffected by agricultural runoff.
Though a checklist of birds on the Konza Prairie lists 200, birding is more difficult on the plains than in forested areas, where trees serve as a stage. But hiking is safe; the big predators -- mountain lions, grizzly bears, wolves -- are all gone now.
For flora fans, the hunting is more certain. With some cattle grazing, the intentional periodic burning of the prairie, and even the return of bison to some pastures, plants are flourishing as they did before humans invaded. More than 570 species of plants have been identified, which one scholarly paper called ``likely greater than that of any other area of comparable size in the Great Plains region."
Kansas is best in the shoulder seasons, with winter too bitterly cold and summer temperatures often rising over 100 degrees. A scenic lookout outside of Manhattan (which is nicknamed ``The Little Apple") in the spring offers a 360-degree panorama of miles of rolling pastures, broken by the tops of trees in low areas, outcroppings of yellow rock where soil has eroded, and dark specks that are distant cattle. Once-numerous barns and silos are fast disappearing, but silvery leaves still shimmer on the occasional large cottonwood tree.
Despite its name, the prominent Little Bluestem grass gives the hills a rust color.
Farther south on Highway 177 is Council Grove. Named for a meeting of US government commissioners and the Osage Indians that allowed the passage of settlers along the Santa Fe Trail, the town today is marketing history, as well as recreation on Council Grove Lake with its 40 miles of shoreline.
Back up on the highway -- towns like Council Grove were built in low areas, near rivers and creeks -- you can listen to narration on Flint Hills Scenic Byway radio as you head to the former Spring Hill/Z-Bar Ranch, near Strong City.
It's jolting to drive for miles in the country, passing mostly low, yellow limestone buildings, and then come across an edifice that look as though it could fit in Boston's Back Bay. But J.C. Jones, a descendant of Hingham emigrants, bought land along Fox Creek in the late 1880s and built a home on a hill that more than a century later makes you take your eyes off the road.
That red-roofed, balconied, three-story home is the anchor of a 19th-century family ranch complex now operated by the National Park Service . It features a huge three-story barn, ice house, and three-holer limestone outhouse, and headquarters for the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, the largest unit in the National Park System that is privately owned.
Because the rich but rocky soil largely precluded farming, ranching flourished, with cattle replacing the bison and elk. Now environmentalists, academic researchers, historians, and ranchers are engaged in preserving wide areas, and recalling a colorful past.
Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve encompasses nearly 11,000 acres and has more than 35 miles of stone fence. There is no camping, but the National Park Service operates 34 acres and offers guided tours of the ranch buildings, nature and backcountry trails .
``Here you don't have to cup your hands around your eyes" to obscure human intrusions and go back in time, said Brian Obermeyer, Flint Hills project director for The Nature Conservancy, which also owns thousands of acres here. ``Mostly this is what it looked like."
The cosmopolitan center of a Flint Hills trip is Cottonwood Falls, the Chase County seat.
Its courthouse is locally famous, built in the same Second Empire style of the Spring Hill Ranch home. It dominates an otherwise typical short main street that brings more and more visitors -- to the restored Grand Central Hotel and Grill, where the rooms are named after local ranches; the Emma Chase Cafe, which has live entertainment ; and Jim Bell & Son , where you buy the cowboy boots and Stetson to take home as souvenirs.
Contact Thomas C. Palmer Jr. at tpalmer@globe.com. 
