Midwestern Prairie Bird Watcher Nature Lover Seclusion

I am a retired college Botany and Ecology Professor. Our Swedish immigrant relatives moved up from Nebraska in the early 1900's. My late mother was born just 600 feet north of this home in 1916. I have been coming to this area since 1950. In 2021 we built this new home for personal use and for other guests to enjoy a unique, pristine native prairie setting. While I live in Wisconsin, I have excellent local housekeepers and contacts nearby who can come over for anything I cannot solve by cell phone. A relative who lives in the area, manages the entire 3600 acre property primarily for wildlife and as a beef cow calf ranch. Immediately surrounding the home is land harvested for hay annually and fenced pasture for free range cattle. South Dakota bee-keepers place hives annually for Clover and Alfalfa honey harvest each Fall.
The nearby "Prairie Winds" wind energy project, which began in 2010, sustainably harvests South Dakota's wind energy for our national power grid.

As a gateway to the West, Patten Prairie House is a quiet unique setting with numerous healthy plant and animal populations for bird watchers and nature lovers to enjoy.
Virtually all of the adjacent land has never been touched by a plow and remains much as you see it since the last glaciers left this region over 10,000 years ago.
Lakota Native Americans first populated this area and used nearby lakeshores for summer camps and lived in communion with nature. Numerous undisclosed Native sacred sites are in the area. The Atka Lakota Museum in Chamberlain and the Prehistoric Indian Village in Mitchell are excellent museums that have preserved native culture and history.
Patten Consolidated School, 2 miles east, was the first rural K-12 consolidated public school authorized by the legislature in 1914. It replaced numerous rural one room schools and added a high school.
The Missouri River, just 40 miles west at Chamberlain, is an outstanding Walleye fishery in May and June and late summer into the Fall.
For those heading further west to the Black Hills ( 4 hours west) or on to Yellowstone National Park (11 hours), Patten Prairie House is a perfect stop along the way.
We are 4 1/2 hours from the Twin Cities and 10 hours from Chicago or Milwaukee.