Stephens State Forest is a state forest located in
Lucas
Lucas or LUCAS may refer to:
People
* Lucas (surname)
* Lucas (given name)
Arts and entertainment
* Luca Family Singers, or the Lucas, a 19th-century African-American singing group
* Lucas, a 1960s Swedish pop group formed by Janne Lucas Perss ...
,
Clarke,
Monroe
Monroe or Monroes may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Monroe (surname)
* Monroe (given name)
* James Monroe, 5th President of the United States
* Marilyn Monroe, actress and model
Places United States
* Monroe, Arkansas, an unincorp ...
,
Appanoose and
Davis counties in Iowa. Stephens State Forest is 15,500 acres and split into 7 separate locations (referred to as Units) that collectively make up the largest state forest in Iowa.
History
Stephen's State Forest was established in the 1930s by the
Civilian Conservation Corp
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government unemployment, work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was ...
(CCC) through an effort to expand hardwood and conifer populations in the area. In the 1950s, the CCC sold the land to the state of Iowa and the forest was converted into a recreational property. The 7 separate parcels of land that make up Stephens State Forest are referred to as the Lucas, Whitebreast, Woodburn, Cedar Creek, Chariton, Thousand Acres, and Unionville Units.
In 1951, the state forest was named after T. C. Stephens, a professor of biology at
Morningside College, ornithologist, and conservationist.
Prior to this, the collective units of land were referred to as the Lucas-Monroe Forest Area.
In 2008, Stephens State Forest was designated as a
Bird Conservation Area (BCA) and the Thousand Acres BCA was designated in 2014.
Ecology
Stephens State Forest consists of
tallgrass prairie association, upland hardwood association, bottomland hardwood association, and their respective transition zones. Due to the CCC planting non-native trees in the 1930s. the soil is predominantly made up of forest vegetation.
Flora
* Tallgrass prairie:
**
''Andropogon gerardi'' (Big bluestem)
**
''Panicum virgatum'' (Switch grass)
**
''Sorghastrum nutans'' (Indian grass)
**
''Spartina pectinata'' (Prairie cordgrass)
**
''Echinacea purpurea'' (Purple coneflower)
**
''Lespedeza capitata'' (Round headed bush clover)
**
''Amorpha canescens (''Lead plant)
**
''Pycnanthemum incanum'' (Mountain mint)
* Hardwood trees:
**
''Quercus alba'' (White oak)
**
''Quercus rubra'' (Red oak)
**
''Quercus velutina'' (Black oak)
**
''Quercus macrocarpa'' (Bur oak)
**
''Quercus imbricaria'' (Shingle oak)
**
''Ulmus rubra'' (Red elm)
**
''Ulmus laevis'' (White elm)
**
''Populus sect. Aigeiros'' (Cottonwood)
**
''Celtis'' (Hackberry)
**
''Fraxinus'' (Ash)
**
''Acer saccharinum'' (Silver maple)
**
''Juglans nigra'' (Black walnut)
* Coniferous and non-native hardwoods:
**
''Picea'' (Spruce)
**
''Robinia pseudoacacia'' (Black locust)
**
''Liriodendron tulipifera'' (Tulip poplar)
References
External links
Stephens State ForestIowa Department of Natural Resources
{{Protected Areas of Iowa
Iowa state forests