Mount Mitchell Heritage Prairie Preserve
From I-70 exit 328, 5¾ miles north on K-99, then ½ mile east on Mitchell Prairie. Rising out of the Flint Hills, Mount Mitchell is a 45-acre prairie hilltop and public park. Interpretive panels in the parking lot explain that American Indians, explorers, immigrants, and slaves seeking freedom on the Underground Railroad passed through this area. In season, wildflowers and grasses surround you as you hike the quarter-mile grassy path to the summit. Captain William Mitchell, for whom the hill was named, came to this area with the Beecher Bible and Rifle Colony in 1856. Near the top of the hill a bronze plaque commemorates Mitchell and the Beecher colony. A second plaque, on a red glacial rock, pays tribute to a Mitchell relative Captain George T. “Dodge” Fielding. To the north you can see the privately owned Mitchell homestead, which comprises original structures that once sheltered escaping slaves.