FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 15, 2015
Glacier’s End Nature Preserve created
Central Indiana Land Trust closes on purchase of Johnson County site where glaciers stopped
In southwest Johnson County, a preserve 12,000 years in the making is now forever protected. Glacial activity long ago helped to create unique geological formations and spawn a spectacular forest at this amazing site, now known as Glacier’s End Nature Preserve.
Thanks to a number of generous donors, the Central Indiana Land Trust recently closed on the purchase of Glacier’s End Nature Preserve.
In support of the largest purchase in the Land Trust’s history, funders contributed $707,000 to buy the property and protect it forever. A grant from Indiana’s Bicentennial Nature Trust provided $300,000 of that total. The land sits adjacent to two properties already protected by the Central Indiana Land Trust – the Laura Hare Preserve at Blossom Hollow and Bob’s Woods Conservation Easement – to create a 550-acre swatch of contiguous forestland.
Glacier’s End is exactly what its name would suggest: the place where the glaciers stopped their southward march. Specifically, it is where the Wisconsinan Glaciation ran into the Brown County Hills. As a result, the property has both glaciated and unglaciated land, and supports a surprising diversity of flora and fauna within a tightly compressed area.
This massive conservation opportunity took root in the 1930s, when one Indiana family bought large swaths of the land, and the 1950s, when another family purchased adjoining lands. The two families collaborated with other partners in the 1960s to create Lamb Lake, the largest privately owned lake in the state. In recent years, the families worked together with the Land Trust to protect much of their remaining lands.
“Protecting contiguous forestland is important because in order to survive, many species need a block of 700 or more acres of mature forestland. Without that, species like the ovenbird and Eastern box turtle could disappear from Indiana,” said Cliff Chapman, executive director of the Central Indiana Land Trust.
The Land Trust couldn’t have accomplished this without a multitude of partners. Willing landowners – Randy and Sandy Lamb and family, and Tom and Priscilla Johnson and family – sold the property at a significant bargain price, and generous contributions came from the Bicentennial Nature Trust, The Nature Conservancy, Indiana Heritage Trust, Amos Butler Audubon and the Efroymson Family Fund.
The beautiful site features clear running water, steep bluffs, exposed bedrock, shale bottom streams, and chunks of granite strewn across the valley floors. The area is a haven for rare species including the state endangered timid sedge, the Northern long-eared bat, red-shouldered hawk, hooded warbler and worm-eating warbler. Many forest interior bird species are found here too.
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