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.
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.”
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.”
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.”
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