Park district celebrates 50th anniversary
On Dec. 7, 1973, Sandusky County commissioners passed a resolution to create a county park district. Now, five decades later, the Sandusky County Park District is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
“Ironically, Robert Roush was one of the commissioners, and now his property is part of the park district,” said Naturalist Debbie Haubert.
Haubert, Program Supervisor Deb Nofzinger and Interpretive Naturalist Sarah Chong talked about the park district’s 50 years of existence as they sat in the Wilson Nature Center at Creek Bend Farm on March 14. Creek Bend Farm was once the Roush family homestead.
In 1975, the park district began leasing the former White Star Mining Co. land from its then-current owner, the Ohio Department of Resources. White Star Park became the park district’s first park. It was officially acquired from the ODNR in 1991.
The district now owns 18 parks
Today, the park district owns 18 parks that encompass 3,617 acres. In those parks, visitors can experience nature in many ways, but in the park district’s early years, the focus was on active group recreation. That focus has evolved over the years.
“When a lot of parks were getting started, there was a big push to provide recreational activities. The campground at White Star was baseball fields,” Haubert said. “There was a modern turn to focus on conservation and education in the late 1980s.”
From there, the focus changed again in response to requests for programs that would connect park users to nature.
“When Debbie and I got into the field, we were naturalists. People wanted to learn the identifiable names of everything,” Nofzinger said. “Now, people want nature experiences, like canoeing with bald eagles.”
Today, the park district offers a wide range of nature experiences, including swimming, fishing, birding, hiking, archery and hunting. Park visitors can go horseback riding, metal detecting, canoeing or SCUBA diving.
“We have rental facilities and offer access to more bodies of water now,” Haubert said.
A big expansion was adding the Wilson Nature Center
One of the most significant changes to the park district was the addition of the Wilson Nature Center, which opened in 2014.
“The idea of having a nature center was a 20-plus year dream of board members and the former director,” Haubert said.
Modern changes to the park district include the use of social media to inform, educate and entertain. Haubert creates nature posts for Instagram, and Chong keeps the public informed on Facebook. This year, Chong created weekly #ThrowbackThursday posts in honor of the park district’s 50th anniversary.
“I’m posting a chronological history of photos so people can realize how long we’ve had the parks and how much they’ve changed over time,” Chong said.
Park district staff participate in state and federal nature studies that once required many manhours in the field. Today, they rely on electronic resources such as iNaturalist and eBird apps to assist with data accumulation. When locals submit sightings through the apps, that information is accessible to the park district.
“We would love for people to contribute to those. We used to have to set up in nature. Now we can rely on birders,” Haubert said.
Looking to the future of the park district, the staff would like to expand its stewardship department, increase its operations staff, and add amenities to its existing parks.
“We would like to make the parks more user-friendly,” Nofzinger said. “It would be nice to see all the parks have paved walkways, bathrooms and small shelters.”
For now, the park district will remain focused on its mission of getting people out in nature.
“The goal with any park is to create an even balance of active recreation and passive recreation. People want archery and swimming, and we still need programs that are wild for the most part,” Nofzinger said. “Our big job is to provide opportunities for people to make connections with our environment.”
The district will kick of the year’s birthday celebration with a presentation of the history of the Sandusky County Park District at the Clyde Museum on April 11.
Contact correspondent Sheri Trusty at sheritrusty4@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Fremont News-Messenger: Park district celebrates 50th anniversary
