Samuel R. McKelvie National Forest

Located in the heart of Nebraska's Sandhills, the largest grass-stabilized sand dune formation in the Western Hemisphere, Samuel R. McKelvie National Forest is a unique hand-planted forest on the open prairie covering 116,000 acres of Cherry County. Like its sibling Nebraska National Forest, McKelvie was established as part of the early twentieth-century effort to grow timber on the Great Plains, with plantations of ponderosa and jack pine scattered across the rolling dune landscape. The Merritt Reservoir, adjacent to the forest, provides outstanding fishing for walleye, largemouth bass, and northern pike, as well as boating and swimming in a strikingly beautiful Sandhills setting. The forest provides important habitat for sharp-tailed grouse, greater prairie chickens, mule deer, white-tailed deer, and pronghorn, making it a popular destination for hunting and wildlife observation. Remote and sparsely visited, McKelvie offers a genuine sense of solitude on the open prairie, with expansive skies that make it an exceptional location for stargazing and experiencing the vast scale of the Great Plains landscape.