Flower Creek Dunes Nature Preserve—located in a designated Critical Dune Area—protects a population of the threatened Pitcher’s thistle, a unique wildflower found only on certain areas of the Great Lakes shoreline. A suite of other sensitive dune species thrives on the shifting sands near the water’s edge, while the stabilized back dunes further inland support a hardwood forest that is home to a myriad of wildlife and bird species.

Situated on the Lake Michigan shoreline, Flower Creek Dunes Nature Preserve lies along a major migratory flyway. Bald eagle, merlin, northern harrier, hooded warbler, common loon, red-headed woodpecker, and the endangered piping plover have been observed on the preserve or in the immediate vicinity during migratory periods.

The area around Flower Creek Dunes has been identified as a regional conservation priority since at least the 1960s. Under the Land Conservancy’s ownership, management of the preserve has focused on protecting the intact open dune and forested dune habitat.

Humans have shaped the landscape in the vicinity of Flower Creek Dunes Nature Preserve for thousands of years. Native Americans altered the landscape around the preserve by hunting, farming, burning, and the establishment of villages and trails. European settlers later extensively logged forests in the area at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. At least two sawmills were established along Big Flower Creek in the 1860s. The selective logging and subsequent fires caused a shift in composition of the recovering forests towards hardwood-dominated systems containing few conifers. After the extensive logging in the late 1800s, the forest on the property that is now the preserve was allowed to recover, and by 1938, the parabolic dunes supported a closed-canopy, mid-successional forest.

The western portion of the property was owned by the Neff family from the mid-1950s to 1989, when it was sold to Dale Crooks. Around that time, Douglas and Gretchen Paprocki purchased an adjacent 43 acres and worked with the Land Conservancy to protect the land with a conservation easement.

In 2012, with abundant community support, the Land Conservancy worked with the Crooks family to purchase 14 acres and create Flower Creek Dunes Nature Preserve. The community later helped the Land Conservancy purchase an additional 17 acres from the Crooks family in 2017 and then the 43-acre conservation easement parcel from Douglas Paprocki in 2021. The latter parcel was added to the preserve and designated as the Huston-Rausch-Paprocki Reserve, in line with Mr. Paprocki’s wishes and in recognition of the property’s former landowners.