Friends of the Hempstead Plains

Friends of the Hempstead Plains is a not for profit organization dedicated to preserving, restoring and offering educational programs about The Hempstead Plains. The grasses and plants they are trying to preserve, survive the hot dry summers requiring no fertilizer, are dominated by the prairie type of bunch grasses (Turkey Foot Grass. Switchgrass, Indian Grass, Broomsedge, Little and Big Bluestem). There was Butterfly Weed, Milk Weed, Goldenrod, Blue-Eyed Grass, Birdfoot Violets (the official flower of Nassau County), wild indigo seeds and leaves (used to make dyes), the varieties of daisies, Black Eyed Susans, Queen Anns Lace, as well as, mosses and lichens. All gave a mass of continued color from spring time on the plains to the fall with an abundance of black berries to eat. The wildlife that inhabited the plains was the Upland Sandpiper, Grasshopper Sparrows, Ring Neck Pheasant, Red Tail Hawks, Barn Owls, fox, rabbits, a colorful display of butterflies, jumping grasshoppers and crickets all made the plains their home.

Today, only about 80 acres remain of the original 60,000 acre paririe which, at one time, streached from Queens border to the Suffolk border. All a part of Long Island, a land that was carved out by the glaciers with the deposits of sand, silt, and clay giving way to the bluffs on the north shore, and wide beaches, dunes, and salt marshes on the south shore. A land that was home to the Native Americans, and the settlers who came in the 1600s to the plains which provided a common pasture for sheep and cattle and later the land was tilled and farms developed. The area was ideal for horse racing and the first race tracks in our country were built. The military utilized this land from the time of Revolutionary War militia encampments to the development of Mitchell Field as a military base during WWII. The flat treeless land was ideal for airfields which gave birth to Long Island being known as the cradle of aviation with a great history of its own. Then the development of residential and commercil buildings, growth of communities such as Plainview, Plainedge, Garden City, Floral Park and Levittown all were born out of the plains.

Information from the CENTRAL PARK HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER - July - August, 2005