Second in a series by board member John Bacone
Note: A version of this series appeared in the Indiana Parks Alliance newsletter and the Indiana Native Plant Society Journal.
Indiana’s state-dedicated nature preserves are not only places of natural beauty. They also showcase what our state looked like in a bygone era.
Several large nature preserves, over 1,000 acres in size, afford visitors a chance to see expansive pre-settlement landscapes. Step back in time at these large preserves:
- The Ten O’clock Line Nature Preserve in Brown County State Park (Indiana’s largest nature preserve) protects 3,339 acres of the Brown County Hills.
- Rocky Hollow-Falls Canyon NP at Turkey Run State Park encompasses over 1,600 acres, and contains sandstone canyons, waterfalls, and upland and floodplain forests along Sugar Creek.
- Dunes Nature Preserve, within Indiana Dunes State Park along Lake Michigan, contains massive dunes, extensive beaches and foredunes, swamps, and marshes.
- Sherman Minton (DNP) and Outbrook Ravine (in Clark State Forest) Nature Preserves, in Floyd and Clark Counties, contain large acreages of Indiana’s “knobs,” including siltstone glades and Virginia pine populations.
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Big Walnut Nature Preserve Big Walnut NP (DNP), along with the TNC-owned Fortune Woods, each contain large forested complexes along Big Walnut Creek, just 45 miles west of Indianapolis.
- Large prairie and wetland complexes in Newton County, including TNC’s Kankakee Sands restoration and Beaver Lake Prairie, Conrad Savanna, and Conrad Station Nature Preserves, provide an excellent opportunity to see the prairie country in northwest Indiana.
- The Limberlost/Loblolly nature preserves in Jay and Adams Counties include large-scale wetland restorations, bringing back the landscape Gene Stratton-Porter wrote about in her famous novels.
Some nature preserves protect examples of Indiana’s past glacial history. These include:
- Dune and Swale complexes, established as Glacial Lake Chicago retreated following the last glacial period, have been protected at Gibson Woods (Lake County Parks), and Ivanhoe (TNC and Shirley Heinze Land Trust) Nature Preserves.
- Glacial Esker Nature Preserve (Chain O’Lakes State Park) contains an esker and glacial lakes.
- Mitchell Karst Plain Nature Preserve in Spring Mill State Park has an impressive array of sinkholes within a forested landscape.
As living museums, these special places are worthy of study and appreciation.
Next up: We continue our virtual tour of Indiana’s best nature preserves to visit.
John Bacone
Secretary