Editor’s note: In celebration of the 150th anniversary of our city, the Daily will highlight prominent figures, places and events in Ames’ history each week.

Ada Hayden Heritage Park, one of the most popular parks in Ames, honors  the first woman to earn a Ph.D. from Iowa State.

Ada Hayden was born in Ames on Aug. 14, 1884, attended Ames High School and was a member of the ISU faculty for 40 years, first as a lecturer from 1910 to 1918 and then as an assistant professor of botany from 1919 until her death in 1950.

After working as an instructor and professor, Hayden was appointed curator of Iowa State’s herbarium, a library of plant and organic materials. Hayden added more than 40,000 species to the herbarium’s collection in her years at Iowa State, according to the University Archives on the ISU library website.

In 1988, the herbarium was renamed the Ada Hayden Herbarium to honor Hayden after she devoted decades to the collection that is still used today, according to the Ames Historical Society.

The Ada Hayden Herbarium is located in Bessey Hall and houses more than 600,000 different species. The herbarium is mostly used by researchers, but some qualified undergraduates have access to it as well.

Hayden was also a passionate conservationist and was a proponent of setting aside native prairie land as preserves. This passion for restoring native land led the state prairie reserve in Hamilton County to be named the Ada Hayden Prairie Reserve by the Iowa Conservation Commission, according to the Ames Historical Society.

“The prairie itself has intrinsic merits aside from its bearing with reference to crop insurance. It presents a colorful display of flowering plants throughout the growing season; it is the potential source of economic plants whose uses have not yet been explored,” wrote Hayden, according to the University Archives on the ISU library website. “It affords opportunity for the study of the life histories of animals, the knowledge of which has a practical bearing upon their integration with the agricultural environment. It serves as a standard of reference for landscaping, it constitutes type specimens of the native vegetation and soil associations, and provides living examples of the fauna and flora which are indispensable in educational work.”

In 2002, Ada Hayden Heritage Park was established by the city of Ames after it bought Hallet’s Quarry. The quarry was filled with water and turned into a lake, and the surrounding area was turned into an assortment of native Iowa prairie land.

The many botany students and researchers who use the Ada Hayden Herbarium daily are living carriers of the legacy that Ada Hayden left behind almost 70 years ago.