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Land Trust Preserves Indiana’s Last Old-Growth Forest

Markus Meltzer
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https://www.flickr.com/photos/125492874@N06/

Phil Meltzer, 88, was born in a small house on the land his family owned since 1857.

“I remember one time when we were kids we built a little cabin out in the woods and went coon-hunting with the boys at night,” Phil says.

Meltzer Woods has also been in the Meltzer family for over 150 years and the trees have been left untouched, making it the last unpreserved old-growth forest left in Indiana.

Now, the Central Indiana Land Trust has bought the 48 acres of intact woods.

“The walnut and oak were worth quite a bit of money and I could have got quite a bit of money cutting them, but with the woods cut over, it wouldn’t be the same,” Phil says.

Exactly how much money?

The Land Trust says the land and trees were appraised for $548,000. Phil gave his half of the land to the trust while the other half, owned by his children, sold their share for $288,000.

“My dad, a farmer, is the one behind all of this. His father Brady Nelson was well known, and I’m a small town lawyer, making me fairly well-known, and my son, who’s also a lawyer, joked that grandpa is the missing generation,” Kris Meltzer, Phil’s son, says. “I’m glad he’s done this and this will certainly put his name in the community.”

The land trust will preserve the woods and build a parking lot nearby so visitors can come and hike through the forest by 2016, the same year as Indiana’s bicentennial. Kris says his father’s dream was to have the woods be a nature preserve by the state’s bicentennial.

The forest was designated a national natural landmark in 1973.