History
Much of the prairie area was annexed by the municipality of Markham, Illinois, a suburb located south of Chicago. In most of greater Chicago, annexations of this type were a precursor to real estate development. However, the prairie patch's relatively poor drainage made it less attractive to land development. Furthermore, in the years after World War II Markham became an economically troubled and relatively slow-growing community. Finally, in 1971, the Gensburg family, owners of a key 60-acre (240,000 m2) parcel at the heart of the prairie, donated the parcel to the Nature Conservancy. The prairie's current name, Gensburg-Markham Prairie, commemorates this donation.
Read more about this topic: Gensburg-Markham Prairie
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of some metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“To a surprising extent the war-lords in shining armour, the apostles of the martial virtues, tend not to die fighting when the time comes. History is full of ignominious getaways by the great and famous.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)