The tallgrass prairie reserve is in the central forest-grasslands transition ecoregion of the temperate grasslands, savannas and shrublands biome.

Midewin remains the only federal tallgrass prairie preserve east of the Mississippi River, where surviving areas of that habitat are extremely rare.

And amidst the Sixth Extinction of wild species, when three billion birds alone have been lost from North America in just the past 50 years, Midewin also reveals .

The name Midewin (/mɪˈdeɪwɪn/, mi-DAY-win) is a Potowatomi Native American word referring to the tribe's healers, who it was believed also kept the tribal society in balance.

[10] Research since the establishment of the park has found evidence of a pre-European–contact village (c. 1600) from the Oneota culture in a place on the site called Middle Creek.

Major proponents of the prairie establishment and restoration included World War II flying ace William J.

Four bulls were transferred from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Fort Collins, Colorado, and 23 cows were obtained from a ranch in Gann Valley, in Buffalo County, South Dakota.