By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Wood County Park District is buying acreage suitable for staking up tents, roasting some marshmallows, and sleeping out under the stars.
The park district board voted Friday to purchase an additional five acres next to the district’s existing Baldwin Woods acreage west of Bowling Green in Weston Township.
The new acreage will extend the park district’s area west of the current woods. The property has cleared grassy areas that would work as a campsite for groups like scouting organizations or church groups, said Neil Munger, director of the Wood County Park District.
This is the third land purchase as part of Baldwin Woods. The first section of 124 acres was bought in 1993. That was followed by another 31.5 acres in 2015. The land, which all sits north of Euler Road, is wooded with no trails.
Park district board member Denny Parish said the woods is important to the region because it has never been logged. The area is virgin woods – so park district officials decided to not even cut trails through the acreage.
“It’s an investment to see what this place looked like years ago,” Parish said. “We want to keep this like it was 300 years ago.”
Though there are no trails, people are allowed to hunt in Baldwin Woods during the permitted seasons. The park is one of two in the county park district that allows hunting, along with Cricket Frog Cove.
The latest purchase sits to the west of Rangeline Road. The property includes a manufactured home that can be used for programming by groups camping there, Munger said. The site also has a pole barn.
“That’s something we are always looking for – places to store things,” Munger said.
The park board voted to pay $65,000 for the five acres owned by Wilda Kaltenbach.
“This is absolutely gorgeous,” park board member Bill Cameron said of the acreage. “It’s awesome.”
This is the second land purchase that the park board has approved this month. The other involved 32.8 acres just north of William Henry Harrison Park in Pemberville. The agreed upon price was $425,000, which includes a house that the park district may use as a headquarters for its police.
Earlier this year, the park board talked about the need to focus on maintaining the property it has, rather than purchasing more land.
In both these cases, however, the additional acreage allows for the expansion of existing parks, Munger said.
“It ties right in with what we’ve talked about – not spreading ourselves out,” he said. “We are filling in some of the holes that we have.”
