BLOOMINGTON - It turns out a native prairie that served as a living classroom outside Stevenson School for 25 years was only evicted, not destroyed. | Video

Though the prairie was scraped and buried a year ago, volunteers from the John Wesley Powell chapter of the Audubon Society, fans of the prairie and Bloomington Parks & Recreation Department workers transplanted native plants that survived at a new site at Ewing Park III on Thursday.

This weekend, students from Illinois Wesleyan University's chapter of the Sierra Student Coalition will transplant other plants that were saved in pots after they sprouted earlier this year.

The Stevenson prairie, which measured about 100 feet, will encompass about one-tenth of an acre at its new home. It will be near another small prairie measuring about three-quarters of an acre the city of Bloomington is planting.

"I'm just looking forward to it having a new life at Ewing." said Audubon spokeswoman Margaret Hollowell. "I think it's wonderful. It's just so impressive that it returned and things grew back."

In the early 1980s, the Audubon chapter and the city partnered with District 87 to establish the Stevenson prairie to teach children about Illinois' rich natural history. Native prairie, which once covered about 22 million acres of the state, shrank to less than 3,000 acres statewide after early settlers discovered the rich soil beneath it.

In October 2006, Audubon members and city officials weren't given a chance to move the plants to another site before the plot was bulldozed. A former principal called it an "eyesore" in an email to District 87 groundskeepers and others claimed it had become a security issue, though Bloomington police were unaware the prairie caused any problems.

District 87 Superintendent Robert Nielsen, who at the time said he was not consulted before the prairie was scraped, also is happy with what has happened.

"I'm very pleased that they were able to save the prairie and that it has worked out the way it has," he said.

When Nielsen did learn what had happened last year, he saw to it that no herbicides or mowing took place at the site. As a result, about a third- to one-half of the original plot, including about 15 different plant species, grew back. That allowed Bloomington Parks and Recreation Director Dean Kohn and his staff to find a place for it in Ewing Park III, located off Jersey Avenue.

Hollowell expressed thanks to Nielsen and others at District 87 for their help.

"We couldn't do it without them," she said. "We are pleased with the cooperative spirit they've shown."

Still, Given Harper, head of the IWU biology department and a faculty advisor to the Sierra Student Coalition, remains troubled by how the prairie was treated.

"It is a shame that we are able to salvage only a few of the original plants," he said. "Many of the plants that are now destroyed took several years to be established."

Hollowell also hopes school officials continue to refrain from mowing the former site. If so, more plants might be saved.

"Things are still going to grow back if it would be allowed," she said. "We would the hope the district allows the rest of the prairie to develop. There is a seed bank there and other plants will be able to grow."

While Nielsen hasn't seen the site recently, he said the district would work to ensure that nothing is done "that would prevent plants from coming back." He said the district would look at the plot again in the spring.