Group buys 339 acres near Bloomington for nature preserve

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) – A land preservation group has bought 339 acres of wooded wetlands near Bloomington and plans to convert it into a nature preserve.

Sycamore Land Trust says the land is along Beanblossom Creek, about a mile northwest of the group’s current Beanblossom Bottoms Nature Preserve.

Sycamore assistant director John Lawrence tells The Herald-Times that much of the new property is bottomland that’s now being farmed. He says the land trust plans in a few years to begin restoring it to a natural wetland.

Lawrence says the property was up for sale on the open market. Money for the purchase came from Indiana’s Bicentennial Nature Trust and the Sam Shine Foundation, which was started by the founder of Samtech Inc., an electronic connections manufacturer in New Albany.