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Hoosier National Forest reclaims privately-owned land

A view from inside the Hopper Pit, one of the pit caves on the Lowe tract in the Hoosier National Forest.

A view from inside the Hopper Pit, one of the pit caves on the Lowe tract in the Hoosier National Forest. (Courtesy Central Indiana Land Trust)

Eighty acres of Orange County land will be sold back to the U.S. Forest Service. The private owners sold the land at auction last month for $541,000 to the Central Indiana Land Trust

The site, which is inside the boundary of the Hoosier National Forest, will be added into the forest’s 204,000 acres and “close a gap in the larger forested landscape,” according to a statement from the land trust.

googleearth_image.jpg
A Google Earth outline of the 80-acre area. (Courtesy Cliff Chapman)

The Hoosier National Forest spans nine counties in south-central Indiana.

The site, known as the Lowe tract, has several distinct features, including a sandstone arch and two pit caves. Hopper Pit, one of the caves, is historic due to its discovery in 1804.

“Sandstone pit caves are actually more common in New Mexico,” Cliff Chapman, president and CEO of the Central Indiana Land Trust, said. “It's a really rare occurrence for Indiana.”

Cliff Chapman, president of the Central Indiana Land Trust, explores the Lowe tract sandstone arch.
Chapman explores the Lowe tract sandstone arch. (Courtesy Central Indiana Land trust)

The trust says there is also a unique landscape south of the sandstone arch known as the sandstone barrens, which hosts a silver plumegrass rare to Indiana. 

This is the first occurrence of this biome in Orange County, Chapman said.

“It was a complete surprise that we found it. We would have bought it either way, but the geologic feature is really worth going for all on its own.”

Chapman walks in the sandstone barrens in the Lowe tract of the Hoosier National Forest.
Chapman walks in the sandstone barrens in the Lowe tract of the Hoosier National Forest. (Courtesy Central Indiana Land trust)

Andrew Stokely, one of the land trust board members, attended the auction and said in a statement that the trust was bidding against two individuals who had planned to turn the Lowe tract into a housing development.

The land trust closed the deal with donations from the Evergreen Fund for Nature, according to Cliff Chapman, president of the trust.

“When this all becomes part of the Hoosier,” Chapman said, "and people get to go and visit and see this, that’s all that matters.”

Read more: Local conservation nonprofit receives grant to study two rare species

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