More of Tabor Woods will stay standing

Purchase more than doubles conservation area

By David Steinkraus - Racine Journal Times

CALEDONIA - From the air, it looks like a jigsaw puzzle piece, a patch of woods that starts near the intersection of Highway 31 and 6 Mile Road and wanders west, cut her and there by fingers of farm fields or open land.

It's Tabor Woods, one of Racine County's few natural areas, and as of late May, more of it is protected for the enjoyment of future generations.  In late May, the Caledonia Conservancy finished a deal two years in the making by purchasing 13.7 acres to add to the 11.7 acres which it had acquired several years ago.

"Tabor Woods is one of the last remaining, perhaps the remaining, stand of hardwood forest, old-growth hardwood forest, in Racine County," said Dan Kaemmerer, one of the people who administers the state Stewardship Fund for the Department of Natural Resources.  That's why it was essential to protect it and why the fund devoted $85,000 of it's $60 million annual budget to the $172,000 purchase price of the new parcel.

Most of the remainder was raised through individual donations said Sandy DeWalt, the conservancy's president.  "Everybody's $25 and $50 and $100 add up eventually and make it a beautiful area."

There were also some large donations, she said.  "The Potawatomi gave $10,000 because that had been part of the Indian lands and the traditional path between here and down to Chicago."  Yet it wasn't enough.  The conservancy had to take out a $16,000 line of credit to complete the deal.  "So if anybody has an extra $16,000, we could certainly us it," she said.  "Or even $100 here or there would help."

Addition of this new piece of Tabor Woods - named the Wendy McCalvy Tabor Woods in honor of the longtime Caledonia conservation advocate - creates a wild corridor approximately from Highway 31 west  to the Root River where Tabor Woods joins the Renak-Polak Woods owned and managed by the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.

The next step will be building trails, for both horses and humans.  A naturalist has already walked the land and marked out where the trails can be placed with minimal disturbance, said Michele Ohler, the volunteer coordinator for the project.

The conservancy was fortunate to work with developer Ray Leffler, president of Newport Development, DeWalt said.  "If we had not had his cooperation, it just would not have happened."

Leffler said he gave the conservancy a reduced price for the addition, "so they wouldn't pay what fair market value would be."  he also has another piece of Tabor Woods, about 18 acres which is part of a 1020acre parcel for which he has an accepted purchase offer.  Now his company is working on preserving it in some form in concert with the conservancy.

DeWalt isn't sure the conservancy's budget could handle the purchase of another piece of land, and no one is thinking about that just yet.  For the moment, she said, conservancy members are taking time to celebrate what they've achieved.

When Leffler first began developing that area, neighbors opposed his original plan to put homes in the woods.  He said it was hard to accept because he could see how many homes he wouldn't be able to build.  Instead, he started helping them preserve the woods.

"I think as you mature a little bit you're a little more appreciative of certain things," he said.  "And that is a pretty valuable commodity, the woods."