The Naming, Identification, and Protection of Place in the Loess Hills of the Middle Missouri Valley
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The Naming, Identification, and Protection of Place in the Loess Hills of the Middle Missouri Valley David T. McDermott B.A., Haverford College, 1979 B.S., State University of New York, 1992 M.A., University of Kansas, 2005 Submitted to the graduate degree program in Geography and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _________________________________ James R. Shortridge, Ph. D., Chair _________________________________ J. Christopher Brown, Ph. D. _________________________________ Linda Trueb, Ph. D. _________________________________ Terry A. Slocum, Ph. D. _________________________________ William Woods, Ph. D. Date defended: October 22, 2009 The Dissertation Committee for David T. McDermott certifies that this the approved version of the following dissertation: THE NAMING, IDENTIFICATION, AND PROTECTION OF PLACE IN THE LOESS HILLS OF THE MIDDLE MISSOURI VALLEY Committee: _________________________________ James R. Shortridge, Ph. D., Chair _________________________________ J. Christopher Brown, Ph. D. _________________________________ Linda Trueb, Ph. D. _________________________________ Terry A. Slocum, Ph. D. _________________________________ William Woods, Ph. D. Date approved: October 27, 2009 ii It is inconceivable to me that an ethical relation to land can exist without love, respect, and admiration for land, and a high regard for its value. By value, I of course mean something broader than mere economic value; I mean value in the philosophical sense. Aldo Leopold1 1 Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanc and Sketches Here and There (New York: Oxford University Press, 1949), 223. iii Contents A personal note: geography and a shotgun .................................................................... 1 1. The Loess Hills ..............................................................................................................7 2. Loess Hills Biogeography .......................................................................................... 26 3. Defining the Hills........................................................................................................ 48 4. A Subjective Cartography of the Loess Hills .......................................................... 82 5. Creating the Loess Hills........................................................................................... 110 6. How Americans think about public lands ............................................................. 138 7. How Not To Make a National Park........................................................................ 167 8. The State of Protection of the Loess Hills.............................................................. 181 9. Looking Back and Looking Forward..................................................................... 208 Appendices..................................................................................................................... 214 iv Maps 1. The terrain of the Loess Hills........................................................................................ 12 2. Distribution of Yucca glauca ....................................................................................... 19 3. Stream network in the Loess Hills................................................................................ 25 4. Nineteenth century landcover in the Loess Hills Region............................................. 34 5. Landcover in the Loess Hills region ............................................................................ 37 6. Distribution of grassland in the Loess Hills region ..................................................... 40 7. Central Loess Hills landcover derived from Landsat imagery .................................... 46 8. U.S. Department of Agriculture definition of the Loess Hills..................................... 51 9. Loess Hills as defined by the National Park Service ................................................... 53 10. Loess Hills as defined by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the Iowa Department of Transportation............................................................................... 54 11. Loess Hills as defined by the Nebraska Loess Hills Resource Conservation and Development Council ........................................................................................... 57 12. Loess Hills as defined by Koch ................................................................................. 58 13. Loess Hills as defined by Mutel................................................................................. 59 14. Elevation in the Loess Hills region............................................................................. 62 15. Areas of steep slope in the Loess Hills region........................................................... 64 16. Areas of high local relief............................................................................................ 66 17. Areas with typical Loess Hills soils........................................................................... 71 18. Loess Hills landcover.................................................................................................. 72 19. Placenames in the Loess Hills.................................................................................... 75 20. Detail of the road network in the Loess Hills ............................................................. 77 21. Area of crooked and diagonal roads in the Loess Hills ............................................. 78 22. The Loess Hills .......................................................................................................... 79 23. The Loess Hills as defined by varying numbers of criteria presented....................... 80 24. The Loess Hills as defined by Internet respondents .................................................. 87 25. Colleges and universities participating in the survey ................................................ 90 26. Loess Hills as located by college and Internet respondents....................................... 92 v 27. Perception of the Loess Hills from individual colleges............................................. 94 28. The Loess Hills as defined by fifty percent of survey respondents ........................... 99 29. Use of a three-dimensional surface to identify consensus opinion.......................... 100 30. The Loess Hills as defined by survey respondents ................................................... 101 31. Example output of U. S. Department of Labor online mapping application ........... 106 32. Cartographic techniques for illustrating speculative phenomena ............................ 108 33. Distribution of businesses using the word “loess” in the business name ................ 114 34. Pre-1830 Indian occupation of the Loess Hills........................................................ 123 vi Tables 1. Nineteenth-century landcover in the Loess Hills.......................................................... 35 2. Landcover in the Loess Hills. ...................................................................................... 38 3. Distribution of landcover by subregion within the Loess Hills ................................... 41 4. Landcover and direction of slope................................................................................. 41 5. Grassland in the Loess Hills ........................................................................................ 42 6. Woodland in the Loess Hills........................................................................................ 42 7. Cropland in the Loess Hills.......................................................................................... 43 8. Accuracy assessment of land cover characterization in the central Loess Hills.......... 47 9. States identified as being within the Loess Hills by paper survey respondents........... 90 10. News reports of Loess Hills from March 22, 2006 to Oct 15, 2008........................ 116 11. Visual representation of the hills in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries... 137 12. Protected areas in the Loess Hills ............................................................................ 182 13. Protection of Loess Hills by state and protecting jurisdiction ................................. 185 14. Landcover on protected areas in the Loess Hills ..................................................... 187 15. Distribution of protected parcels of grassland in the Loess Hills ............................ 188 vii Figures 1. Loess Hills at Brickyard Wildlife Area, Missouri……...……….………………. 7 2. Loess kindchen……………………………………………………..…………… 14 3. Bald-pated hills in northern Missouri………………………………..…………... 16 4. Loess Hills at Pisgah, Iowa………………………………………….…............... 16 5. Cross section at Highway 2…………………………….…………….………….. 18 6. Truncated ridges along the Missouri River…………………..………………….. 20 7. Changes in the channel of the Missouri River north of Rulo, Nebraska………… 22 8. SSURGO data detail…………………………………………………………….. 67 9. Dissolved SSURGO data……………………………………………….……….. 68 10. Identifying a line of unambiguous Loess Hills…………………………..…..… 68 11. Soil types found at the unambiguous edge of the Hills…………………...….… 69 12. An eastern boundary developed from soil types………………………….……. 69 13. JavaScript application for web-based participatory mapping………...…..……. 86 14. Titian Peale. Engineer Cantonment…………………………………...….….… 131 15. Karl Bodmer. Blacksnake Hills, Roubidioux’s