Land Trust Adds to Mossy Point Nature Preserve
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Mossy Point Nature Preserve in Parke County is growing after the Central Indiana Land Trust purchased 25 acres of adjoining land. The property abuts the 191-acre Mossy Point Nature Preserve, DNR’s Covered Bridge Retreat property, and Wabash College’s Allee Woods, which creates 700 acres of contiguous protected property.
“This is the most beautiful place we’ve ever protected,” Central Indiana Land Trust Executive Director Cliff Chapman said. “The terrain, the vegetation, the wildlife … it’s just a breathtaking display of natural Indiana. It’s like a small, unspoiled Turkey Run.”
The new acreage runs along Sugar Creek and includes a sandstone canyon and wooded areas that include white oak and shagbark hickory trees, along with bald eagles and other birds. The land acquisition was the quickest to date for the Land Trust. The owners, Cliff and Dixie Kunze, who are also Land Trust members, closed the deal in four weeks.
The Land Trust raised $191,000 to buy the property and to build a trail and gravel parking area that the public will be able to use beginning in the fall of 2019. Funding came from the State of Indiana’s President Benjamin Harrison Conservation Trust, The Nature Conservancy, Steve and Catherine Simon, Efroymson Family Fund and members of the Central Indiana Land Trust.