Baker donates Glenmont land to park district
Holmes County Park District Director Jen Halverson, left, and board member Dan Mathie flank Bill Baker in a presentation of a copy of the deed that gave the Holmes County Rails to Trails Coalition more control over the trail area near Glenmont.
More than two decades ago when Bill Baker stepped in as a key player in the development of the Holmes County Rails to Trails, he played a role in encouraging others to follow suit to create what has become a big drawing card for tourism for the county, as well as a staple of local travel for bikers, walkers and buggies.
On Tuesday, Oct. 15, Baker met with Holmes County Park District Director Jen Halverson, park district board member Dan Mathie and Trent Grassbaugh of Grassbaugh LLC at the pavilion by the trailhead in Glenmont, where he officially donated the deed of a stretch of the trail to the park district.
Baker said the hope is he is the first of several landowners to do so, and his donation will give the park district some new assurances as the Holmes County Rails to Trails continues to extend around and beyond Glenmont.
According to Halverson, discussion began last summer about Baker’s land near Glenmont. Several different landowners own land along the trail and have granted the park district a perpetual recreational trail easement right that allows it to build the trail, but those rights are only to do so on a strip of land along the former railroad track that is about 30 feet wide.
Baker’s land extends about 2 1/2 miles along the trail, and his recent act of donating the ownership rights to the park district means the park district now has full leverage over not just 30 feet right of way along the trail, but also a swath of land that now exceeds 50 feet on both sides of the trail.
Baker purchased that 30-plus acre section of land when the railroad began parceling it off decades ago.
“The land is now totally committed to the county and to future generations,” Baker said. “I have no decision-making ability on the land now.”
He said he hopes to entice the other landowners to follow suit, deeding their strip of land surrounding the trail to the county so it will eventually have full say as to how the trail will be built and maintained.
“We all started this project together years ago, and I’d like to end it all together in the same way,” Baker said, “that way we know that the trail would be in the hands of the trail coalition forever and that it would be well taken care of.”
In the late 1990s, Baker sat down with several landowners along the trail and urged them to sign on to provide the park district with easement rights that would propel the trail project forward.
“If we didn’t all get on board, it would have been useless,” said Baker, who sat on the Holmes County Rails to Trails Coalition Board in its infancy. “I said we either need to do this or get out completely. I wasn’t totally sure this (trail) would ever happen, but what we’re seeing has been an incredible thing for Holmes County.”
Baker said during the late-1990s, local politicians and many people were dead set against the trail because they believed it would heavily tax the people of the county, which turned out not to be the case, as the coalition instead went the route of private donations.
Fortunately, all the involved parties eventually got on board and the trail project roared into motion. Combined with the Amish community, which was fully behind the project and volunteered to do much of the maintenance of the trail, the project became a reality.
With Baker donating the land to the park district, it benefits the organization twofold. First, it provides them with full ownership over how the environment immediately surrounding the trail is handled. Second, it will save the park district quite a bit financially, approximately $6,000 per year.
“Since this is only a recreational easement, the park district was paying real estate taxes on this 2 1/2 mile, 100-foot-wide section,” Mathie said. “Now that the park district owns it, we get rid of that expense, and we can now dedicate those funds to upkeep and maintenance.”
Halverson said in addition, the 100-foot permanent easement protects the corridor for not just a 30-foot swath, but also for 100 feet surrounding the trail.
“We can make sure this natural beauty surrounding the trail will remain for future generations,” Halverson said. “This will ensure that we are able to maintain the natural beauty along the trail, which is a big part of why people enjoy the Holmes County Trail so much.”
“Up until this, the park district had no control over whether or not the trees along the trail would get cut down or not,” Mathie said.
Grassbaugh’s company is serving as the contractor for the ongoing trail work, and once the land deed was officially signed over to the park district, he took all who attended on a quick tour of some of the work taking place on the trail, work that includes placing several culverts along with shoring up areas along the waterways coursing through the trail.
In touring the trail area around Glenmont, Baker and the group got to see firsthand the beauty of the trail.
Grassbaugh said the bridge culverts and retaining walls are the biggest part of construction, and the hope is next spring they will begin laying down asphalt, something that depends greatly on the winter weather.