About the Area

Buildings and Offices

The Midewin Supervisor’s Office is the building with the three flagpoles in front of it. The SO houses most of the Forest Service, partner, and volunteer staff who manage the prairie. It is the hub of all activities on site.

There are several other buildings at the Midewin Headquarters:

• Welcome Center
• Horticulture Building
• Weather Station
• Hotshot Base
• Machine Shed

Welcome Center

The Midewin Welcome Center is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. year-round and on Saturdays during busy seasons. It is located in the Midewin Supervisor’s Office, through the doors near the three flagpoles. Visitors can see interpretive exhibits about Midewin’s natural and cultural history, ask questions at the counter, obtain free trail maps, and shop at the Midewin Interpretive Association’s book shop.

Horticulture Building

Midewin’s Horticulture Building is located behind the Midewin Supervisor’s Office to the east.  This is where Midewin staff and volunteers process and clean the seed used for prairie restoration. The building provides storage space for restoration tools and equipment, and it also houses a workshop for woodworking projects, such as sign construction.  Outside the building are three shade houses and a greenhouse that are used for the propagation of native plants.  The three plantings in front of the building feature some of the shorter prairie grasses including prairie dropseed, little bluestem, side-oats grama, June grass, and tufted hair-grass.  Prairie wildflowers in the plantings include purple and white prairie clovers, royal catchfly, Ohio horsemint, and Sullivant’s coneflower.

Weather Station

Just to the south of the horticulture building is Midewin’s Remote Automated Weather Station (RAWS).  This is one of almost 1,500 interagency RAWS located throughout the U.S.  The weather station records wind speed and direction, solar radiation, temperature, humidity, rainfall, fuel moisture and temperature.   Hourly weather observation records from Midewin dating from late 2004 can be accessed here.

Midewin Hotshot Crew

The Midewin Interagency Hotshot Crew makes their home in two buildings on site, the training and office building and the garage.  The Midewin IHC was formed in 2001 and is a national resource, called out to fight wildland fires around the country. The IHC also assists in prescribed burning here at Midewin.

Machine Shed

The Machine Shed, located just northeast of the Midewin Supervisor’s Office, is for storage of the tractors and other farming equipment needed for restoring such a large landscape at Midewin.