This panoramic view shows some of the trees in Hoot Woods. Courtesy photo by Abby Henkel
At a glance
Hoot Woods, which is just a little more than 80 acres, is in Owen County a few miles north of Freedom.
Although there may have been a few trees cut in Hoot Woods, most of the trees have been protected by the Hoot family since the 1860s. It's considered part of the original eastern deciduous forest ecosystem that was here before European settlers arrived in Indiana. Beech and maple trees are the dominant species. In the 1960s, beech trees were the dominant species; that has changed, and now maple trees dominate Hoot Woods.
Because of the sensitivity of the site, Sycamore Land Trust does not plan to build a parking area or hiking trail in Hoot Woods. There will be guided hikes to the area. For more, go to the Sycamore Land Trust website, sycamorelandtrust.org.
At this time of the year, when more people are attuned to giving, Sycamore Land Trust officials are sharing their excitement about a gift from an Owen County family. The land trust is currently closing on acquisition of the Hoot Woods property, which is 80 acres and includes old-growth trees that have been untouched since at least the 1860s.
“There’s so few of these properties left,” said Christian Freitag, executive director of the land trust, about the land a few miles north of Freedom.
Freitag compared the oldest trees on the property to the stands of old-growth trees at Pioneer Mothers Memorial Forest in Orange County and Donaldson’s Woods Nature Preserve near Mitchell, both of which have trees that have been there since the first European settlers came to the area.
The Hoot family, who are donating the property, emigrated from Germany, traveling to Indiana to homestead about 160 acres. Of that land, a little more than 60 acres is still heavily wooded in what is considered an old-growth beech-maple forest that’s one of the remnants of the original eastern deciduous forest ecosystem, which covered much of Indiana’s landscape before it was settled.
Some of the trees on the Hoot Woods property are thought to be 200 years old, or possibly older. A total of 22 different tree species have been documented in Hoot Woods by Marion Jackson, a retired ecology professor from Indiana State University. Jackson first began taking an inventory of the trees on the property in the 1960s, and has done so every 10 years since then, documenting the changes in one of Indiana’s remaining old-growth forests. In doing so, Jackson and his colleagues have made Hoot Woods one of the most researched areas of beech-maple forest left in Indiana.
“We have a lot of mortality and new growth in the stand,” Jackson said of approximately 16 acres he surveys each time. “Nature is never static.”
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