It sits very close to the Millersylvania State Park, the community of Maytown, and the city of Tenino.

The two land owners west of Old Highway 99 are the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Port of Tacoma.

A major land owner east of Old Highway 99 is the Washington State Department of Natural Resources.

There is also another property on the east side owned by Thurston County which has a gravel pit located on it.

[3] The closest weather station to Rocky Prairie with a long period of record collection is at the Olympia Regional Airport in the city of Tumwater.

The Vashon Glaciation was the time period in which the Cordilleran Ice Sheet extended south of the present-day US–Canadian border into Western Washington.

This occurred during the Wisconsin Glaciation, the time period when ice sheets covered much of Canada and the northern United States.

During the Vashon Glaciation, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet covered parts of Alaska and Canada.

Rocky Prairie was almost at the edge of where the glacier stopped, and was only under ice for a short period of time.

With the eventual encroachment of forest, the early inhabitants had to burn the prairies in order to maintain them.

With the arrival of European settlers in the mid-1800s, new immigrants introduced plant species from where they came from so they could feel more at home.

A very problematic species on prairie lands in Thurston County is Cytisus scoparius (Scotch broom).

[15] The next day, the Port of Tacoma purchased the property at Rocky Prairie from Citifor, Inc. for a price of over US$21 million (about $70,000 per hectare or $28,000 per acre).

[9] There would be a massive increase in truck and freight train traffic,[17] and numerous negative secondary environmental impacts.