By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Molly Sawyer Ludtke spent her childhood at the property that is now the Sawyer Quarry Nature Preserve off Lime City Road in Perrysburg Township.
Those were idyllic times – horse riding, swimming in the quarry water, fishing, and exploring the surrounding woods with her siblings and cousins.
“This was our family seat,” she said. First it was a business and then their family’s bit of paradise. Even after they grew up, the family would gather there for July 4th and Thanksgiving.
The family has arranged for all of us to have a chance to enjoy it.
Since 2015 the Wood County Park District has opened the preserve up to the public. It features rock climbing and walking trails.
On Saturday its newest feature, the Ann B. Sawyer Interpretive Center, opened. The new center tells the story of the land, its use, and the Sawyer family.
The opening was marked by a ribbon-cutting. It was a soft opening, said Jamie Sands, Park District communications specialist. The district was concerned about crowding. A number of people have been asking when the center would open.
Sawyer Ludtke and two of her sisters, Elizabeth Sawyer Biederman and Sally Sawyer Burns, were on hand to participate, and talk with the media.
It was their mother who worked to preserve the area. She didn’t want it to be developed, Sawyer Ludtke said her mother worked with the Black Swamp Conservancy to arrange to put a conservation easement on the land, and then with the park district to create the park.
“She really wanted to be able to preserve the quarry in all its natural splendor for perpetuity and for all to enjoy,” her daughter said. “That was the main driving force.”
Mindy Wayton, of Perrysburg, said, her family has driven by the entrance to the preserve. The family has visited a number of county parks. But Saturday was the first time they’d stopped by.
It was a coincidence that they came on the day of the opening.
Her daughter, Hazel Wright, 8, was already at the top of the climbing wall.
That and the picture window looking out over the quarry are highlights. “This is amazing,” Wayton said.
Britton Witter has been waiting for the new interpretive center to open. Her husband, Jim, is a program coordinator for the park district.
She was glad to be able to share it with their two children, Natalie, 5, and Ethan, 8.
“We’re always trying to find learning experiences we can do together,” she said.
The center offers a chance to think about “what the land looked like a long time ago,” she said. It also gives insight into “the effect people have had on the environment.”
Sawyer Ludtke’s great-grandfather Charles Henry Sawyer and his brother-in-law Walter B. Scott acquired the property and opened the quarry in 1891.
The limestone quarry, which provided limestone ash for glass making and material for other industries, operated until 1932 when they struck an underground water source and the quarry flooded.
At that point it became the family’s recreation spot.
The quarry had water, later partly provided from a nearby quarry, for many years, though now the floor is dry for the most part.
Ann Boyer Sawyer and her husband, Charles Kirk Sawyer, replaced a cabin on the property with a cottage in 1985 and that became their home until his death in 2008. She was an active gardener, and love the wildflowers on the property. He was an active sportsman who passed his love of the outdoors on to his children. Mrs. Sawyer died three years ago.
The center is located in another cottage built by an uncle and located on the spot of the miner’s shed.
The Sawyer Quarry Preserve adds another dimension to the Wood County Park District. The district has a number of wetlands and shoreline along the Maumee and Portage rivers, said Neil Munger. “Where else can you rock climb and rappel in Wood County?”
Sawyer Ludtke said her family, which includes two other siblings, Susan Sawyer Smith and Charles Kirk Sawyer Jr. who not able to attend the ribbon-cutting, are pleased with how the park district realized their mother’s vision.
“She, as well as my father, would be overjoyed the way it’s come together. Now I hope a lot of people come and enjoy it.”
