By J. Anfenson-Comeau

jamieenews@bellsouth.net

The Eunice Cajun Prairie Restored Site on north Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive may be one of Louisiana’s best-kept botanical secrets.

The Prairie Cajun Preservation Society will be providing tours of the site, located on North MLK just south of the railroad tracks, on Saturday morning, from 8 a.m. to noon, on the hour and on demand. Botanist Dr. Charles Allen told Eunice Rotarians Wednesday that when the Cajuns first arrived in this area, the prairie stretched for 2.5 million acres, from the Sabine River to the Atchafalaya Basin.

Prairie habitat is unusual in the South, but Allen said that several factors led to the unique habitat, including a thick layer of clay inches below the soil surface, frequent fires, grazing animals such as buffalo, and average rainfaill in excess of 50 inches per year.

Development throughout the area, including the introduction of invasive species, reduced the once-flourishing native Cajun prairie to the point where it was only found in little strips along the right-of-way owned by the railroads.

In 1989, Allen and Dr. Malcolm Vidrine worked with then-Eunice Mayor Curtis Joubert to secure 10 acres of land near the railroad tracks to become a Cajun prairie preservation area.

To ensure continued preservation of the site, Allen and Vidrine formed the non-profit Cajun Prairie Habitat Preservation Society, which purchased the site from the city.

All plants on the site are native to the original Cajun Prairie, and some, such as the slender bluestem, are found nowhere else.

Several of the plants were used by Native Americans and early Cajun settlers for a variety of purposes, including clothing, dyes, medicine and food preservation.

The site is allowed to grow wild, but once a year, generally between January and March, it is subjected to a controlled burn to allow for fresh growth, as prairie fires were a common part of the environment.

The Cajun Prairie Habitat Preservation Society will provide guided tours Saturday morning, but the site is open to visitors free of charge every day of the year, and handouts are available to help visitors identify Cajun Prairie plants.

Seeds are collected yearly from the site and used to help establish other Cajun prairie habitats in Louisiana and Texas.

“Some people have called this, ‘The best restored prairie in the U.S.’,” Allen said.