🦋Join us to celebrate the return of the monarchs, as they migrate up from the south! 🗓️Sunday May 24, 2026 🕰️ 1 – 4 pm
🏫 Visit the Griffith Depot & Train Museums (everything will be open to view!) and enjoy our Monarch Waystation garden! 🚂 Our barrel train, the Hess Express, will be running 🚃 🦋Learn about Monarchs, their amazing migration, & how they’ve become endangered. Jeanette Bobos, the retired Master Gardner who planted our garden, will be on on hand to share her knowledge. 🐝Learn about adding native plants to your garden. 🌻Buy plants that help butterflies, especially monarchs! We’ll have a small selection of milkweed plants & other native plants.
The monarch butterflies fluttering about aren’t just casual flutterers. They are the last to be born in 2025, and they are ‘super monarchs.’
Right now, they are busy sipping up nectar they, so as to build up fat reserves in their bodies. You see, these particular butterflies were born to do a seemly impossible job.
They, and millions of other super monarchs, fly 1200 miles to a fir tree forest in central Mexico between August and November. And the continuation of their existence in the northeastern states depends upon their safe arrival.
These butterflies do have some ‘super powers’ to help them accomplish their task.
– Because of this journey, a super monarch will live far longer than the 2 to 5 weeks normal monarch butterflies do. – These butterflies are born with larger wings and are capable of flying 50 to 100 miles in a single day, weather permitting. – It is believed they were born with an internal sun compass or magnetic compass to guide them to Central America. – They can fly at speeds of 5 to 25 miles an hour for 4-6 hours a day, gliding on currents of warm air called thermals, to conserve energy when possible.
At the end of each day of their journey, the butterflies will seek out nectar from the flowers to fuel their next-day trip. Once that is accomplished, they will spend the night in trees, clustered together for protection.
It will take the monarchs who leave from Indiana 5 to 7 weeks to make the trip to that Mexican forest Oyamel fir tree forest.
Once there, they, and millions of other super monarchs, will blanket the fir trees for warmth and to conserve energy. Thereafter, they will enter a state of dormancy, allowing them to survive the winter.
We wish all these spectacular insects a safe trip.
🦋Join us in May 2026 to celebrate these incredible creatures at our 2nd Annual Butterfly Day at the Griffith Historical Park, featuring our Monarch Waystation, the Griffith Junction Butterfly Stop.
(If you come visit our Monarch Waystation at the Depot, we ask that you do so respectfully. Please don’t touch the plants, insects, or disturb the habitat in any way. Thank you!)
Introducing our new Monarch Waystation: 🚉Griffith Junction Butterfly Stop! 🦋
We are so grateful to the Lake County Master Gardeners for the financial support and to the Griffith Tri Kappa members for creating and maintaining this absolutely lovely and meaningful addition to our Historical Park, which not only beautifies our park for us and our human visitors, but for an amazing array of pollinators and other winged visitors!
Whether you’re biking or driving by, stop by the Griffith Historical Park to have a seat in the shade, play a game of checkers, and watch the trains and butterflies!
Griffith History Museums 