Wichita Mountains

Why should it be a National Park?

In southwestern Oklahoma lies the Wichita Mountains, an environment of boulder covered buttes and calm blue lakes that is at odds with the rest of the great plains. The range was initially formed by magmatism, followed by shifting climates and tectonic collisions that first buried the now exposed rocks. Uplift brought the rocks back to their current prominence above the plains, where the exposed boulders and slopes were sculpted by erosion. Despite the unique features in this mountain range, which more closely resemble Sub-Saharan Africa than anywhere in the western hemisphere, these rugged mountains are unknown to most Americans. This lack of notoriety has resulted in limited protection for the mountains, with only half of the nearly 60,000 acres currently under any form of federal or state jurisdiction.

Currently, there are no National Parks that primarily focus on the grasslands and prairie, an environment that makes up roughly one-third of the contiguous USA. A few western parks contain some prairie lands, but none of them can compare to the volume of grassland found in the great plains. The Wichita Mountains could be the centerpiece for finally creating a park focusing on the plains and their massive scale. At the very least, the creation of a Wichita Mountains National Park could fill the 700 mile void between the closest eastern and western parks. Preserving the Wichita Mountains, in its native and uninterrupted form, would create a prime example of the sporadic but exemplary natural environments found in this overlooked region. Landscapes like these, which demonstrate the physical and scenic diversity of the United States, are the reason National Parks were established.