Geologically, Zumwalt Prairie sits atop an immense pile of basalt lava flows. Rock is very close to the surface here which helps to explain why there is grassland here rather than farms. Not that farming wasn’t attempted on these thin soils in the early years of the 20th Century. There existed briefly the town Zumwalt, and for decades its schoolhouse was all that survived of the vanished town. Classes were last held here in 1946. The lonely structure was for years a great subject for photos (“U of Z” was once scrawled on its siding), but a big wind demolished the forlorn building in 1990. A few photos of it exist on film, but photographers today armed with the latest and greatest digital cameras are out of luck.