[1][2] Located close to the northern border of the state of Iowa, the nearest towns are Chester and Lime Springs.

[2] An Iowa farm girl, Hayden studied at the Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG) and Iowa State University (ISU) and earned a PhD in biology in 1918, one of the first women to earn this distinction in the U.S. She became an assistant professor of botany at ISU, devoting her personal and professional life to the defense of the fast-disappearing tallgrass prairies of her native state.

During her working lifetime, most of the remaining patches of tallgrass that had survived the rush of Euro-American settlement in the 1800s were falling to the plowshare.

[4] Although this remnant is only 240 acres (0.97 km2) in size – less than a half section of land – it is the largest remaining parcel of tallgrass prairies surviving in Iowa outside of the Loess Hills on the western border of the state.

Hayden Prairie is especially noted for a display of shooting stars peaking around the U.S. holiday of Memorial Day.