Big Paririe Desert  
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In Michigan's lower peninsula there are two regions favorable for the prairie habitat. One of these regions runs from the southwest lower peninsula up to the west-central lower peninsula. Another region runs from the southeast lower peninsula into the thumb. Some western Michigan counties that had prairie lands are: Cass, St. Joseph, Branch, Hillsdale, Kalamazoo, Allegan and Newaygo counties. Along with prairies there were even little "deserts" in Michigan that were in Allegan and Newaygo counties. The Big Prairie Desert in Newaygo county was once said to be the largest desert east of the Mississippi River. Of course, because a desert is an area receiving less than 10 inches of rainfall per year and this region of Michigan has an average yearly precipitation of 30-36 inches, there could not be a desert there. 

In truth this "desert" was once a tallgrass prairie called the Big Prairie and was a unique feature of the state of Michigan. It extended across the top of a glacially deposited, sandy outwash plain. On its eastern end is an ancient lake bed that had probably been the deep end of a shallow glacial lake that covered the whole prairie area. After years of natural succession the shallow lake would begin to dry up and become replaced by grasses that preferred the sandy soil. By the middle of the 19th century, when the first settlers arrived, the large shallow lake had become a pond in an open grassy plain surrounded by old growth oak and pine trees. 

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