If you’ve ever driven along U.S. Route 150, which passes through Indiana from Vincennes to Floyds Knobs, you may have noticed a road sign depicting a silhouetted bison and the words, “Indiana’s Historic Pathways.” Driving the 176-mile-long highway is like passing through the pages of history; the modern paved road roughly follows a much more ancient path, one forged by beasts and used for centuries as a migration trail. Later, Native Americans and early American settlers used it as a war path, a cargo line, and, simply, as a way to get through the wilderness.
Indiana’s Historic Pathways in southern Indiana was designated a National Scenic Byway in 2009.
The Great Buffalo Trace, as it’s come to be known, is an old migration trail — which long predates European settlement in this part of the North American continent — beaten into the earth by the buffalo (bison, really, but we won’t get into that etymological quandary here). Herds of buffalo, moving by the thousands back and forth from the salt licks of Kentucky to the great grazing plains of Illinois, would pass through what is now southern Indiana. Their passage scored vast tracks in the land that have lasted centuries.
Today, groups of environmentalists and conservationists across the state, led by members of the Protect Our Woods movement, are making efforts to preserve the remnants of that migration trail through a series of events dubbed the Tatanka Roadshow, named after the Lakota word for buffalo.
Unfortunately, the last of the bison in this area were killed off by the 1830s, but the often ten- or twenty-feet-wide compacted-earth paths of the noble beasts were used by natives, French fur traders, pioneers, explorers, statesmen, and military leaders such as General George Rogers Clark, as a means of passage across the territory. Later, the installation of Route 150 modernized the ancient trail, maintaining its use as a conduit of interstate travel. In fact, many portions of the trail itself were paved over to become the new road. Other portions of the buffalo trace can still be seen cutting swaths through field and forest, but much of the trail has been lost to modern agriculture and development.
On their migration, the buffalo would drink of the many streams and rivers that flow through this land, stop to wallow in the mud pits between what are now the towns of Petersburg and Jasper, and shelter against the cold winter weather in the thick forests of Orange County, much of which are protected as part of the Hoosier National Forest to this day. But even that which remains of our native forests, not to mention the ancient buffalo trace, is being threatened by logging and other initiatives from the U.S. Forest Service.
Protect Our Woods campaign manager Steven Stewart gives a presentation on the preservation of the Buffalo Springs natural area to a group of locals at the Perry County Public Library on June 12, 2025. | Photo by Katlin Percifield
Steven Stewart, a Paoli resident and Indiana University graduate, is the campaign coordinator for Protect Our Woods, a movement started in the late ’80s by Andy Mahler. Originally from Bloomington, Mahler and his life partner, Linda Lee, have maintained a homestead called the Lazy Black Bear, buried deep in the forest just outside Paoli. (I spent two weeks in 2011 camping at the Lazy Black Bear during an IU-credited permaculture course.) Mahler founded Protect Our Woods in rebellion against the USFS’s early attempts to log the Orange County portions of the Hoosier National Forest, which includes remnants of the Buffalo Trace. Now, decades later, after discovering the USFS’s plans for the Buffalo Springs Restoration Project of logging, burning, and spraying chemicals in that area of the Hoosier National Forest, the Protect Our Woods movement has doubled its preservation efforts.
“Rather than this type of treatment,” Stewart says, “we are endeavoring to get the unique critical area preserved as a park focusing on education, tourism, recreation, and research.”
Joined by Save Hoosier National Forest and other preservationists around the state, such as those Lawrence and Monroe county citizens protesting the USFS Houston South Project, Protect Our Woods is hosting the Tatanka Roadshow, a series of lectures, readings, musical performances, and community gatherings throughout southern Indiana. Artist Gloria Courtney has constructed a large bison sculpture, named Tatanka, that is on display during the events, and attendees are invited to take their picture with this visual representation of Indiana’s history.
Their event on June 12 at the Perry County Public Library featured local musicians and a presentation by Stewart on the history of Buffalo Trace and forest management projects in the Hoosier National Forest. “Our Tatanka Roadshow is to advocate for this preservation, and to bring awareness to the issues at hand,” Stewart says. Protect Our Woods aims to get the attention of both citizens and elected officials. “Governor Mike Braun and the Orange and Crawford county commissioners support our cause instead of the Buffalo Springs project,” Stewart says.
A statement provided by Protect Our Woods explains that the U.S. Forest Service named the area in the Hoosier National Forest intended for logging “Buffalo Springs” both in reference to the historic Buffalo Trace, which runs through the center of the project zone, and to the abundant freshwater and mineral springs that flow through the area. The Buffalo Springs project encompasses 29,714 acres and, according to Protect Our Woods, would threaten delicate ecosystems, unique karst features, natural habitats for wildlife including Indiana’s already endangered bats, and immense watersheds, including that of Patoka Lake. The logging and development project would also critically impact the flow of the Lost River, one of only five rivers in the world that is known to flow underground and out again at several places along its course.
The USFS website says the Buffalo Springs project is intended to improve “forest health and sustainability of the oak-hickory ecosystems while also improving wildlife habitat.” These claims have met with pushback from environmental groups and even from Gov. Braun.
Katlin Percifield, public outreach coordinator for Protect Our Woods, is one of many Hoosiers, like Stewart, who says her life would be negatively affected by the Buffalo Springs project. Percifield got involved with the movement last year. “My area of living is directly going to be impacted if this project goes through,” she says.
Community engagement with the Tatanka Roadshow has been strong, and Protect Our Woods is not even close to slowing down. “A large turnout showed for the Buffalo Springs preservation presentation put on at the library,” Percifield says.
Tim Grimm is scheduled to perform at the Tatanka Roadshow in Paoli on June 28. | Photo by Frank Schwichtenberg, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Another, much larger, event is planned for Saturday, June 28, 6:00 p.m. (doors open at 5:00) at the First Presbyterian Church, 110 NE 1st St., in Paoli. The Protect Our Woods Concert event will feature a quartet of notable Hoosiers who have made positive impacts on Indiana forest preservation efforts. Comedian Stephanie Lochbihler is set to emcee the event while singer-songwriter Tim Grimm will perform as musical guest; award-winning novelist, essayist, and esteemed professor of English at IU Scott Russell Sanders and famed screenwriter and producer Angelo Pizzo (Hoosiers, Rudy) will speak.
The Facebook event page describes a night of food, drinks, live music, and a charity auction to “raise funds and awareness for nonprofit organizations Protect Our Woods, Indiana Forest Alliance, and Heartwood, and their collective mission to preserve the cultural and historical value of the Hoosier National Forest and protect it from unwanted and unnecessary logging, burns, and chemical treatment.”
