Spread Eagle Barrens State Natural Area is a protected area just off of U.S. 2 in

Florence County Florence County is the name of two counties in the United States: *Florence County, South Carolina *Florence County, Wisconsin Florence County is a county located in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census, the population was 4,55 ...

, Wisconsin, USA. The nearest unincorporated community is

Spread Eagle, Wisconsin Spread Eagle is an unincorporated community in Florence County, in the town of Florence, in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is part of the Iron Mountain, MI–WI Micropolitan Statistical Area. Transportation The community is located on U.S ...

, but the closest large city is

Iron Mountain, Michigan Iron Mountain is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 7,518 at the 2020 census, down from 7,624 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Dickinson County, in the state's Upper Peninsula. Iron Mountain was named for the va ...

; away. The Spread Eagle Barrens is owned by the

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) is a government agency of the U.S. state of Wisconsin charged with conserving and managing Wisconsin's natural resources. The Wisconsin Natural Resources Board has the authority to set policy ...

and the

Wisconsin Energy Corporation WEC Energy Group is an American company based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin that provides electricity and natural gas to 4.4 million customers across four states. Subsidiaries Wisconsin * We Energies, the umbrella name for Wisconsin Electric Power ...

, and was designated a State Natural Area in 1995. In February 1993, the Natural Resources Board approved the creation of an Spread Eagle Barrens State Natural Area. In August 1995, the Board approved the first purchase of land for the new natural area: acres from Florence County at a cost of $1,400,000. Governor

Tommy Thompson Tommy George Thompson (born November 19, 1941) is an American Republican politician who most recently served as interim president of the University of Wisconsin System from 2020 to 2022. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served ...

authorized the purchase in September 1995. Despite the ''barrens'' name, many plants and animals call Spread Eagle home. The large grasslands and barrens are dominated by scattered

jack pine Jack pine (''Pinus banksiana'') is an eastern North American pine. Its native range in Canada is east of the Rocky Mountains from the Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories to Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, and the north-central and ...

red pine ''Pinus resinosa'', known as red pine (also Norway pine in Minnesota), is a pine native to North America. Description Red pine is a coniferous evergreen tree characterized by tall, straight growth. It usually ranges from in height and in trun ...

, scrub oak,Scrub oaks may be ''Quercus dumosa'', dwarf Chinkapin oak (''Quercus prinoides''), or simply undernourished black oak (''Quercus velutina''), white oak (''Quercus alba''), northern pin oak (''Quercus ellipsoidalis''), or bur oak (''Quercus macrocarpa''). Less common but possible is bear oak (''Quercus ilicifolia''). and

quaking aspen ''Populus tremuloides'' is a deciduous tree native to cooler areas of North America, one of several species referred to by the common name aspen. It is commonly called quaking aspen, trembling aspen, American aspen, mountain or golden aspen, tr ...

trees. The open landscape is maintained by timber harvesting and controlled burns. Some of the birds that live in the area are: northern harrier, upland sandpiper, northern raven, winter wren, eastern bluebird, warbling vireo, Nashville, chestnut-sided, pine, and mourning warblers, clay-colored sparrow, common nighthawk, eastern towhee, and Brewer's blackbird.

Black bear Black bear or Blackbear may refer to: Animals * American black bear (''Ursus americanus''), a North American bear species * Asian black bear (''Ursus thibetanus''), an Asian bear species Music * Black Bear (band), a Canadian First Nations group ...

fisher Fisher is an archaic term for a fisherman, revived as gender-neutral. Fisher, Fishers or The Fisher may also refer to: Places Australia *Division of Fisher, an electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives, in Queensland *Elect ...

badger Badgers are short-legged omnivores in the family Mustelidae (which also includes the otters, wolverines, martens, minks, polecats, weasels, and ferrets). Badgers are a polyphyletic rather than a natural taxonomic grouping, being united b ...

coyote The coyote (''Canis latrans'') is a species of canis, canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the wolf, and slightly smaller than the closely related eastern wolf and red wolf. It fills much of the same ecologica ...

red fox The red fox (''Vulpes vulpes'') is the largest of the true foxes and one of the most widely distributed members of the Order (biology), order Carnivora, being present across the entire Northern Hemisphere including most of North America, Europe ...

es, and

white-tailed deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known as the whitetail or Virginia deer, is a medium-sized deer native to North America, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia. It has also been introduced t ...

are some of the animals that roam the area. There are two rivers that run through the barrens: the Pine River and the

Menominee River The Menominee River is a river in northwestern Michigan and northeastern Wisconsin in the United States. It is approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed Dece ...

References

External links

Spread Eagle Barrens State Natural Area
{{Protected Areas of Wisconsin Protected areas established in 1995 Protected areas of Florence County, Wisconsin State Natural Areas of Wisconsin 1995 establishments in Wisconsin