Ohio Adds Two New Forests
On a beautiful late summer morning, the Old-Growth Forest Network dedicated two new Ohio forests to be protected against logging. Highbanks Metro Park and Sharon Woods Metro Park were dedicated on September 15, 2022, during a ceremony attended by many Ohio Metro Parks employees, local forest advocates, and OGFN Regional Manager, Brian Kane. Keep reading to find out what makes these Ohio forests truly spectacular.
Highbanks Metro Park is located in Lewis Center, only a 20-minute drive north from downtown Columbus. This park is massive, coming in at over 1,200 acres filled with nature trails, small winding streams, shale cliffs, deep ravines, and dense forest. Most of the old-growth found within the park’s boundaries can be found in the smaller Edward F. Hutchins Nature Preserve, a 206-acre parcel situated in the southern section of the larger Highbanks Metro Park. Within the Preserve you’ll find a mixture of both old-growth and young forest, primarily consisting of oak, maple, and hickory species. Interspersed throughout the entire park, you’ll find earthworks sites belonging to the people of the Cole Culture and were thought to have been constructed between 800 and 1300 CE. The Cole Culture is a part of a larger indigenous civilization called the Hopewell Tradition. Stretching physically from southern Ontario all the way south to Florida, the Hopewell Tradition encompassed numerous cultures and societies, all centered around a vast trade network utilizing the copious river systems in the area to exchange a diverse array of goods. The Highbank Park Works, also called the Orange Township Works, consist of a series of embankments and shallow ditches. In other areas of the park, you can find cone-like mounds that are from the Adena era. Earthworks like the ones found in Highbanks Metro Park, can be found all over Ohio, especially in the Scioto River Valley (Columbus to Portsmouth), where Hopewell sites are the most plentiful in the country.
Sharon Woods Metro Park in Franklin County, Ohio, is over 750 acres of dense forest and rolling fields located a mere five miles away from Highbanks Metro Park. Even though the park is located within a highly developed suburban area, it’s easy to immerse oneself in the quiet, peaceful calm of nature within a few minutes of hiking one of the parks numerous trails. As with Highbanks, Sharon Woods also has a small nature preserve located within the park boundaries. The Edward Thomas Nature Preserve occupies the southwestern corner and contains a surprising variety of forested habitats. A ravine crosses the Preserve and supports species like pawpaw, Ohio buckeye, red elm, black walnut, butternut, and sycamore. There’s also a small swamp that’s fed by a spring and provides the perfect habitat for amphibians, insects, and other herbaceous plants.
The rest of the Preserve consists of a mesic area with oak-hickory habitats with a smattering of beech, as well as wetter areas made up of elm-ash swamp habitats with red elm and silver maple, as well as white, green, and blue ash. These areas contain eight different species of oak, some of which have been dated at being well over 250 years old. Named after Edward Thomas, a renowned Ohio naturalist, the Preserve is an excellent example of both old-growth and young tree species. Thomas is still celebrated today as a prominent naturalist of his time. During his life, he published thousands of articles focusing on a wide array of naturalist themes. Most importantly, he wrote his articles in a way that made scientific concepts easily understood by all, helping to create many generations of Ohioans who continued to care deeply about natural spaces across the state.
Additional Resources
https://www.metroparks.net/parks-and-trails/highbanks/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopewell_tradition#Ohio_Hopewell_culture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highbank_Park_Works
https://www.ancientohiotrail.org/routes/granville-columbus
https://ohiodnr.gov/go-and-do/plan-a-visit/find-a-property/edward-s-thomas-state-nature-preserve
