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ACRES acquires land appraised at $3 million, reaches 1,000…

ACRES Land Trust recently completely acquisition of 193 acres of Cedar Creek land appraised at $3 million, leveraging a matching award from Indiana’s Bicentennial Nature Trust. With the latest acquisitions, ACRES now permanently protects over 1,000 acres of the  largest natural feature extending through Allen and DeKalb Counties. In total, the local nonprofit recently reached 7,000 acres protected and managed.

ACRES acquired its newest land in the Cedar Creek corridor on four properties, primarily farmland adjacent to existing preserves. ACRES will continue to farm the land for a few years, using the income to protect and manage its holdings. The nonprofit will then restore the properties, planting native hardwood trees and shrubs, thus expanding the forested corridor.

Cedar Creek is one of only three rivers in Indiana designated under the Indiana Natural, Scenic, and Recreational Rivers Act, a designation ACRES Land Trust helped the waterway earn in 1976. ACRES began acquiring Cedar Creek land for permanent protection in 1984. Today, the nonprofit protects 32 properties, including additions to 17 total preserves within the twenty-mile stretch of the creek from Auburn to its terminus into the St. Joseph River in Leo-Cedarville.

For the recent project, ACRES leveraged a unique $1 million matching award from Indiana’s Bicentennial Nature Trust (BNT) for landscape-based conservation. BNT awarded only a handful of such awards beyond the fund’s typical matching support for land acquisition of up to $300,000. Larger-scale landscape-based conservation projects increase protection for land, plants and animals, including rare, threatened and endangered species.

Photo by Joanna Stebing

Former Hoosier governor, Mitch Daniels created BNT in honor of the state’s 200th Anniversary in 2016, allocating $20 million, matched by $10 million in support from Lilly Endowment, Inc. The Trust paid homage to the state’s 1916 Centennial celebration that saw the creation of the State Park System. BNT supported more than 200 projects statewide, celebrating and protecting Hoosier’s love for the land.

The North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA), a bargain sale discount on one of the properties and an 84-acre Cedar Creek land donation by Joan Garman of Leo-Cedarville honoring her late husband’s family’s legacy provided a portion of the match. The Cairn Foundation, The Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo, ME Raker Foundation, and many individual donors invested additional funding to help ACRES protect this land.

About the Cedar Creek Corridor

The Cedar Creek Corridor’s unique topography features a tunnel valley—a sudden, surprisingly deep, gorge-like canyon cut by glacial meltwater into an otherwise relatively flat Indiana landscape. This area is so unusual it was considered for a state park site in the early 1900s.

In 1976, with help from ACRES Land Trust, Cedar Creek became one of only three rivers in the state designated under the Indiana Natural, Scenic, and Recreational Rivers Act.

The corridor is home to vegetation unique in this area such as the yellow lady’s-slipper orchid, gray beardtongue, tall meadow rue, and Allen County’s only documented populations of painted cup (Indian paintbrush) and yellow puccoon.

Cedar Creek’s wildlife includes bobcats, mink and river otters, as well as Pileated Woodpeckers, Bald Eagles, Great Blue Herons, Green Herons, and Yellow-crowned Night Herons.

Cedar Creek runs into the St. Joseph River, ultimately providing drinking water to the 264,000 residents of Fort Wayne and surrounding communities.

While phenomenal, the use of this BNT priority match funding merely ends an incredible phase for the land trust. With continued support, ACRES will continue acquiring and adding to protection of the corridor.

Heinzerling family entrusts 116 acres of Five Points memories…

ACRES Land Trust welcomes its 93rd preserve: 115.8 acres filled with memories of the Heinzerling siblings and the promise of new memories for visitors to the southwest DeKalb County property, Heinzerling Family Five Points Nature Preserve.

“ACRES will develop preservation plans, including restoration plans for the property,” said Jason Kissel, executive director of the 5,717-acre nonprofit. While the Heinzerling Family Five Points Nature Preserve, located 5½ miles northeast of Huntertown, currently is closed, trails are part of the plan. It is the second ACRES preserve in DeKalb County.

“Gretel (Heinzerling) Smith first approached ACRES about preserving her family’s land in 2000,” said Kissel. “Indiana Bicentennial Nature Trust, the siblings and a generous Allen County couple who wish to remain anonymous made purchasing this land possible.”

Black Creek, which flows into Little Cedar Creek and then Cedar Creek, weaves through the preserve. The now-protected-forever ACRES land has vibrant wetlands, agriculture acreage, an oxbow stream and small forested wetland system. The preserve has considerable local history, too: An interurban rail line and Five Points School once existed on the property.

“I’ve always wanted to preserve it,” said Gretel Smith of Garrett, Ind. “I’m so glad ACRES exists.” Three of her five siblings – Katrina Custer of Garrett; Derek Heinzerling of Albuquerque, N.M.; and Johanna Gordon-Byanski of Berlin Heights, Ohio – reunited recently at their family’s former property to reminisce. Franz Heinzerling of Hayden, Idaho was unable to join his siblings. Hans Heinzerling died in 1991. Their parents were the late Thais and Harry DeKalb Heinzerling.

Derek Heinzerling loves the idea of preserving his childhood playground, where their playmates included fish, snakes, mussels and turtles. “This is the right thing to do. There’s no question for us.”

Gretel remembers Sunday afternoon family picnics on the property. She and sister, Katrina Heinzerling Custer, spent hours in the woods, swinging on old vines, pretending to be Tarzan and Jane. Katrina recalls trailing behind her grandfather, Carl Heinzerling, exploring the woods in her grandmother’s boots.

“We spent a lot of time in the maple sugar shack. We had a clubhouse there,” said Derek, pointing across Black Creek. “I remember walking the creek barefoot, finding artifacts.” He would fish the creek and climb the banks. Franz played in the abandoned schoolhouse; Hans built his own playhouse behind the farmhouse that once sat on the property.

“The boys always had a snake in their pocket. I remember you had snakes in your bicycle,” Johanna said to a laughing Gretel.

Their grandfather, Carl Heinzerling, co-founder of Creek Chub Bait Co., purchased the property in the 1920s. Their father, Harry Heinzerling, rode the interurban rail line out of Garrett in the morning to set a trap line on the property and returned to sell furs at his father’s hardware store, a local gathering spot.

“We evaluate land for acquisition using criteria including significant natural features, priority preservation areas, water quality and habitat protection. Land owners who wish to preserve their property forever with ACRES have numerous options including market value sale, bargain sale and donation. With Bicentennial Nature Trust funds available through 2016, land owners have an opportunity to preserve their land and receive income at the same time,” said Kissel.

Indiana’s Bicentennial Nature Trust awarded ACRES $245,000 toward the Heinzerling Family Five Points project. The Trust is comprised of an initial $20 million from the State of Indiana, reinforced by $10 million from Lilly Endowment Inc., providing a 1:1 match for purchasing land.

Indiana Heritage Trust provided $10,000 toward the purchase of the property, revenue from Environmental License Plate sales. Indiana Heritage Trust was established in 1992 through the Department of Natural Resources to preserve Indiana’s rich natural heritage.

ACRES Land Trust is dedicated to preserving significant natural areas in northeast Indiana, northwest Ohio and southern Michigan. The Heinzerling acquisition helps ACRES toward its ambitious goal of protecting an additional 1,800 acres within the next three years, Kissel said.

Learn more

  • Watch ACRES Land Trust’s Cedar Creek Corridor video
  • 2019 Cedar Creek acquisition update
  • ACRES Land Trust plants pace-setting 55,000 trees, reforesting 106 acres
  • Tom & Jane Dustin built a legacy from this home
  • Digging our region’s natural groove: Cedar Creek’s Tunnel Valley
  • View from the Canopy
  • 2018 summer land management intern notes
  • A surprise encounter
  • ACRES Land Trust, partners, fight invasive Japanese stiltgrass

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1802 Chapman Road
PO Box 665
Huntertown, IN 46748
1-260-637-2273
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