From the 1930s Dottie and Lawrence Heller homesteaded a 34-acre (140,000 m2) land parcel in the pinion-pine grasslands at Austin Bluffs, settling directly below the rocky outcrop of Eagle Rock.
Geography field study classes are held at the Heller Ranch, where students practise birdsong-listening, wildflower identification, and dendro-chronological investigations.
[1] Portions of the Dakota Formation again cycled into episodes of erosion, allowing a detritus of coarse-grained sedimentary sand to be displaced some three miles (5 km) eastwards, to land at the site which is now known as Austin Bluffs.
The feldspar-rich sedimented particles of "arkose" sand consolidated into new sandstone, i.e. the Dawson Formation, which shows Eagle Rock's characteristic color, ranging from grey to reddish.
Further southwards are sculpture gardens set onto the front lawns of an old art colony which appeared along Stanton Road when the Eagle Rock suburban neighborhood was first developed.