Wildcat Hills

Why should it be a National Park?

While Scotts Bluff and Chimney Rock are well-known, most people are unaware that they are actually part of the Wildcat Hills, a larger region of bluffs, buttes, and other rock formations. As the plains' states were settled, a sizable population began to live in and farm this fertile region. Steps were taken to preserve some of the more well-known natural features. Consequently, Scotts Bluff was designated a National Monument in the National Park Service, and Chimney Rock was categorized as an affiliated area of the National Park Service run by the Nebraska State Historical Society.

Since establishing the world's first National Park in 1872, the United States has set aside 62 National Parks. The majority of those are in the western states, with a handful dotted across the east. Between these two clusters of parks is the open expanse of the Great Plains, which has been historically overlooked by naturalists and conservationists. The plains were once made up of massive prairies and grasslands that extended west from parts of Indiana to the Rocky Mountains. Much of this land has been developed by homesteaders into agricultural farmland, however, a few special landscapes have endured in their natural state. One of these regions is the Wildcat Hills, an escarpment that extends 45 miles from western Nebraska to the Wyoming border.