The land-trust holder whole: The Nature Conservancy, from a 1951 incorporation to a 1978 lake in Olive Township

item 2 — the holder told as a founding, then its holdings touching this county and ground as a string

The Conservancy begins as scientists deciding that study was not enough: its line runs from the Ecological Society of America, founded 1915, through the society's preservation committee and the Ecologists Union formed in 1946 to preserve natural areas outright; The Nature Conservancy was incorporated as a nonprofit organization in the District of Columbia on 22 October 1951, and its land work opened on Christmas Eve 1954, when neighbours of a 60-acre New York forest — the Mianus River Gorge — were told to bid on the ravine or see it developed; the Conservancy's first official chapter charter followed the same year, in Eastern New York. The Indiana chapter's course is dated by its own first project: the chapter was organized in 1959, and its first project was Pine Hills in Montgomery County — some 600 acres whose purchase and protection the Purdue ecologist Alton A. Lindsey, a founder of the Conservancy nationally and in Indiana, guided; given to the State of Indiana in 1961, Pine Hills became Indiana's first dedicated nature preserve in 1969, and its success helped prompt the state's own Division of Nature Preserves. The chapter's present size prints as a dated series, not a single figure, because its carriers publish by vintage: more than 110,000 acres protected across the state in the chapter's current telling (2024–25), more than 100,000 acres and more than 70 nature preserves in the Indiana Land Protection Alliance's account, and an older field-office listing at over 60,000 acres at over 180 sites with a goal of 100,000 by the 2016 bicentennial. The holdings touching this county form a short, exact string. First and locally seated: Spicer Lake, 1978 — the South Bend Audubon Society's sanctuary search ended with the society buying the original 40 acres from the Conservancy, with the Indiana chapter's and the DNR's assistance, and donating the land to the county parks; the banked account of that purchase stands whole in the Recreation file, and the county plan's own compressed phrasing of the same transaction stands beside it unreconciled in wording, not in fact. Second, one township west in the county's telling: Chamberlain Lake — the 82-acre nature preserve on Crumstown Highway was "originally donated by the Indiana Chapter of The Nature Conservancy," in the county's 2014–2018 master plan, with ownership retained by the DNR's Division of Nature Preserves, a cooperative management agreement with the county parks made in 1997, and county staff helping to develop and maintain the tract and its 1.5-mile trail system. The boundary prints with the string: the county's other famous bog, Lydick Bog, is not a Conservancy holding — it is the Shirley Heinze Land Trust's — and as of November 2026 the Conservancy holds no preserve of its own in Olive Township in the record reached; its work on this ground was the midwife's work, buying and passing on, and the two county preserves it touched are held today by the county and the state.

Sources:

1. The Nature Conservancy (nature.org), "Our History" — incorporation in 1951; the Christmas Eve 1954 Mianus River Gorge ultimatum and first land acquisition; the first chapter charter, 1954.
2. Smith, "The Historical Roots of The Nature Conservancy in the Northwest Indiana/Chicagoland Region," The South Shore Journal 3 (2009) — the Ecological Society of America (1915), the Ecologists Union, and the 1951 incorporation.
3. The Nature Conservancy (nature.org), Pine Hills preserve page — Pine Hills as the first project of the Indiana chapter; Indiana's first dedicated nature preserve, 1969.
4. Lindsey, "The Academy and the Early Natural Areas Preservation Effort in Indiana," Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science 103 (1994), and the Lindsey Resolution of Respect, Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America (July 2000) — the Indiana chapter organized 1959; Pine Hills as its first project; Lindsey's guiding role in the 600-acre purchase.
5. Chapter-size series: Indianapolis Monthly Gives profiles (2024–25, chapter founded 1959, more than 110,000 acres); Indiana Land Protection Alliance (protectindianaland.org) (since 1959, more than 100,000 acres, more than 70 preserves); Land Conservation Assistance Network, Indiana Field Office listing (over 60,000 acres at over 180 sites, 100,000-acre goal by 2016) — printed by vintage, unmerged.
6. St. Joseph County Parks, Master Plan 2014–2018 — Spicer Lake, p. B-25 (the 1978 transaction), and Chamberlain Lake, p. B-19 (the Conservancy's original donation; the 1997 cooperative agreement; the 1.5-mile trail system).
7. Indiana DNR, Division of Nature Preserves directory — Lydick Bog Nature Preserve, ownership Shirley Heinze Land Trust (the boundary line).