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Request a DemoPlans to turn junkyards and landfills into massive park take shape in southern Indiana
CLARKSVILLE — What once was undisturbed wildlife along the shore of Silver Creek now contains a trail of weedy gravel leading to a discarded mobile home. It’s the only thing left from a junkyard stationed among this patch of forested landscape.
“We call it the graveyard,” Vern Eswine, communications director of River Heritage Conservancy, said on a recent May afternoon. “The first thing you saw as you pulled into New Albany was all these trucks and buses and junk sitting here.”
Much has already been cleared, the latest steps in a process that began in 2016 to transform an unsightly mix of junkyards, landfills and other industrial properties into a massive park along the Ohio River in southern Indiana. Think hiking trails, kayaking and treehouses, but also the restoration of land and preservation of wetlands and waterways.
It’s called Origin Park, and Eswine is among an army of people who have been working — often behind the scenes, but increasingly out in the open — to ensure that the transformation takes shape. Hopefully sooner than later.
River Heritage Conservancy, the nonprofit group driving the change, is close to either acquiring or reaching agreements for about 430 acres. And it just received maybe its most important endorsement to date: The two-year budget passed by the Indiana General Assembly last month contained $37.5 million to accelerate Origin Park’s timeline.
The funding is key to a business plan at the center of Origin Park’s ambitions. It will pay for about half of the costs associated with building a 35-acre Outdoor Adventure Center that will house ziplines, climbing walls and manmade water recreation. The goal is to charge fees for access to that part of the park in order to pay for the conservation of the rest — not only protecting the wildlife but also ensuring free access to hundreds of acres of Indiana nature. And it's just across the bridge from a city full of potential visitors in Louisville.
Plans for the Outdoor Adventure Center
Planners originally slated the Outdoor Adventure Center as maybe the third phase of the project. Work can soon begin, though, because of the cash infusion from the state.
“We basically push a lot of our deadlines way forward because of that,” Eswine said. “And now that’s totally jump-started our ability to actually start planning and permitting, just to actually start building this thing while we’re finishing phase one.”
The state's spending on Origin Park is just one part of a larger investment into conservation and nature projects that have been celebrated by Gov. Eric Holcomb and legislative leaders in recent weeks: $30 million for new trails; $10 million to the President Benjamin Harrison Conservation Trust Fund; $5 million for ongoing storm damage cleanup at McCormick’s Creek State Park; and $1.9 million toward acquiring the land for the closed Minnehaha Fish and Wildlife Area. The list goes on.
Perhaps the most ambitious plan of them all, though, is Origin Park.
“We're not going to own it, but in terms of setting aside property for the public, we’ll be making significant gains,” Holcomb told reporters following the passage of the state budget in late April. “I’m very pleased with the trails and park potential to keep our momentum going.”
Where Eswine stood next to the mobile home, at the northern end of the park, will one day become the Outdoor Adventure Center.
The plan for the Outdoor Adventure Center is modeled after Whitewater in Charlotte, North Carolina. A group from Origin Park visited there for inspiration, learning that it pulls in $2.5 million to $3 million in revenue each year, Eswine said.
The company that built Whitewater is going to build Origin Park’s version, Eswine said. Projections show it will draw up to $3 million in revenue each year.
In materials shared with Indiana lawmakers, planners said the park will also drive at least $8 million in new spending to nearby towns.
The goal is to open the Outdoor Adventure Center by 2028.
But that’s just a small slice of the overall plan. Other parts of the park are already open, with a lot more on the way.
Contrasts of abandonment and restoration
Just downstream from the mobile home is a new entry point into the water called Croghan Launch, which opened to the public in March.
A paved ramp gives way to a place to drag canoes and kayaks into Silver Creek. The creek is deep and wide enough for anglers, too. On a recent May afternoon, a man who had launched his motorized boat at a different point still waited near Croghan, fishing rod in hand. The creek serves as a tributary into the Ohio River.
On the other side of the boat launch, however, a landfill looms. Someone might think it’s just a hill, but it’s still there, towering beyond stretches of trees and grasses.
What will happen with some of the spaces remains to be seen. At one landfill, for example, park planners watched for years as a once-level horizon grew in height, driven by trucks that were dumping in heaps every day. That finally stopped about four months ago when the conservancy group acquired the land.
“You can’t really do anything with this. You can be on it, but you can’t dig into it,” Eswine said about the landfill. “There’s plans for it, but we’re not really dealing with that part right now.”
At one of the now-closed junkyards, the debris is mostly cleared but what remains is a barbed-wire fence running along a concrete pad where a semi-truck trailer has been sitting for what seems like decades by the look of it. But almost as if to prove Origin Park’s mission about the importance of reclaiming this space for wildlife, a wild turkey trotted just beyond the trailer on its way to a patch of trees.
Moments like that are common right now. The park is a study in contrasts between abandonment and restoration. It’s not just wild turkey surviving among the vestiges of a junkyard; within some draining wetlands live beaver that recently dammed Mill Creek, and soaring above a landfill is a red-shouldered hawk.
The lands are home to flying squirrels too, Eswine said, and more than 150 types of birds. A late May hike revealed the unmistakable calls of eastern wood-pewee and Carolina wren, in addition to much of the backyard fare typically found in Midwestern cities, such as American robins, blue jays and northern cardinals.
A 2019 ecological report also identified 20 species of mammals, including four types of bats, and several amphibians, reptiles and insects that have found homes amid the emerging wilderness.
Elevated walkways and protecting wetlands
What’s unique about much of this land is that it’s within the flood plain. Rather than fight the occasional floods, Origin Park’s planners are incorporating it into the design. Elevated walkways will allow visitors to have access year-round.
“It will literally be in the trees,” Eswine said. “When we started developing this park, we embraced the fact that it’s going to flood more often than not.”
Another goal is to add protections for the wetlands contained within Buttonbush Woods.
And on the southern end of the property, which stretches along the banks of the Ohio River, much of the land is eroding into the waters below. It’s so bad that a riverside road has been closed to motorists because large pieces of concrete have snapped like a Hershey bar. Planners are hoping to bring in a partner organization to slow the erosion.
Meanwhile, Origin Park is being supported by the Environmental Protection Agency. An $800,000 grant, announced last week, will help pay for cleanup of polluted and industrial sites inside the park.
Eswine, who runs New Albany-based The Marketing Company and has lived in southern Indiana for almost all of his adult years, said he is witnessing a revival among Indiana’s river communities, where downtowns are booming and festivals are filling with visitors.
And he sees Origin Park, which is aptly named to acknowledge that it’s linked to a new beginning, as inherently connected to the region’s revival.
“There is a lot of history along these banks, other than just the formation of Clarksville, New Albany and Jeffersonville,” Eswine said. “Wildlife and civilizations have called this home and we're trying to honestly get back and protect as much as we can.”
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Here’s how to vote in Indiana’s primary election
Thousands of Hoosier voters will head to the polls Tuesday, May 7, for Indiana’s primary election. This year’s ballot includes a competitive contest for governor, as well as dozens of state and federal legislative races and a few school referenda. The primary will decide which candidates will represent their respective parties in the Nov. 5 …
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6 races to watch in the Indiana primary election
The first openly competitive contest for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in a generation will end with Tuesday’s primary election, as will crowded races for several open congressional seats.
The primary won’t officially decide any political race — only the Nov. 5 general election can do that. But Republicans hold major advantages in statewide and many district-level contests, and who secures which nominations will go a long way toward deciding who may lead the state in the years to come.
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Here are six key primary contests to watch on election night.
Governor
The race to be Indiana’s next chief executive has been perhaps the most noteworthy of the election cycle, with six Republicans bringing a variety of experience and outsider credentials to the competition.
Sen. Mike Braun has led in the polls from day one, including running up a 34 percentage-point lead in an April State Affairs/Howey Politics Indiana survey.
The other five candidates are: Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, former Attorney General Curtis Hill, Indianapolis mom Jamie Reitenour and two former state secretaries of commerce in Brad Chambers and Eric Doden.
The winner of Tuesday’s Republican primary will face Democrat and former state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jennifer McCormick, who will advance for her party unopposed.
Republican candidates spent tens of millions of dollars in an attempt to stand out in their crowded pack. The primary race also featured four televised debates, including a chaotic final display on April 24.
U.S. Senate
Two Democrats are vying for the chance to replace Braun in the U.S. Senate: Former state Rep. Marc Carmichael and Valerie McCray, a clinical psychologist.
Carmichael has outspent McCray in the race by a margin of nearly $63,000 to $15,000.
Both are attempting to become the state’s first Democratic senator since Joe Donnelly’s election in 2012.
Rep. Jim Banks is running unopposed in the Republican primary.
3rd Congressional District
Banks’ entry into the Senate race leaves his seat in Congress open, and a bevy of Republicans are seeking to replace him: Grant Bucher, Wendy Davis, Mike Felker, Jon Kenworthy, Tim Smith, Marlin A. Stutzman, Eric Whalen and Andy Zay.
State Affairs has identified Stutzman, a former congressman; Smith, a self-funding former Fort Wayne mayoral candidate; and Davis, a former Allen County judge, as candidates to watch in the crowded race.
Kiley Adolph and Phil Goss are running against one another in the Democratic primary.
5th Congressional District
After initially deciding against another run, Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz reversed course to seek re-election in 2024.
Eight other Republicans are running against Spartz: Raju Chinthala, Max Engling, Chuck Goodrich, Mark Hurt, Patrick Malayter, Matthew Peiffer, L.D. Powell and Larry L. Savage Jr.
Goodrich, a member of the Indiana House of Representatives, has spent more than $2 million on TV ads as he seeks to unseat Spartz, according to AdImpact.
Two Democrats, Ryan Pfenninger and Deborah A. Pickett, are on the ballot.
6th Congressional District
Seven Republicans are attempting to replace retiring Rep. Greg Pence: Jamison E. Carrier, Darin Childress, Bill Frazier, John Jacob, state Sen. Jeff Raatz, Jefferson Shreve and state Rep. Mike Speedy.
Shreve, who ran unsuccessfully for Indianapolis mayor in 2023, has spent nearly $4 million — predominantly through TV advertising — in his bid.
Cynthia Wirth, whom Pence defeated by 35 percentage points in 2022, is running unopposed in the Democratic primary.
8th Congressional District
Republican Rep. Larry Bucshon is also retiring, and a dozen candidates in both parties are seeking to fill his seat.
On the Republican side, former Rep. John Hostettler, state Sen. Mark Messmer, former President Donald Trump White House staff member Dominick Kavanaugh and frequent Bucshon primary challenger Richard Moss are each making a push.
Fellow Republicans Jim Case, Jeremy Heath, Luke Misner and Kristi Risk are also running but trail the above pack in campaign spending.
Four Democrats are also seeking a nomination: Erik Hurt, Peter FH Priest II, Edward Upton Sein and Michael Talarzyk.
Contact Rory Appleton on X at @roryehappleton or email him at [email protected].
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