Director’s Message
“Long Branch is
seeing a resurgence
of interest—this time
with a decidedly
21st-century
take on how a
modest farm can
become a vibrant
part of modern
ex-urban lifestyles.”
It’s been over 50 years since Neil and Camilla McElroy donated their farm to Cincinnati
Nature Center in the hopes that the land would be used to “teach people about the
sources of food and fber.” For three decades, the Nature Center continued the McElroy’s
tradition of managing the land as a small working farm, with some livestock, some
gardens, and some crops. School buses would roll in with kids and parents alike, eager
to pet the animals, dig into the soil, and taste the bounties only a farm can ofer.
Unfortunately, in the early 2000s, the State of Ohio pulled “agricultural education” out
of the public school curriculum. Without this mandate, the impetus for feld trips to
farms dried up statewide, as did the monies to help subsidize running such a farm. Te
Nature Center was left with little choice but to shutter the farm operation and pivot to
making the best of the recreational aspects of Long Branch Farm…and now Trails.
For the past couple of decades, that’s worked out just fne, as many of our members have
enjoyed our fve miles of trails through a wonderful, pastoral landscape. In the past fve
years, interest in Long Branch has taken of with more than 40,000 visits per year. Tis,
with no real amenities other than a couple of pit toilets, several dilapidated barns, and
an old one-lane bridge that, as of this spring, was deemed “condemned” in the wake of a
major storm event.
Meanwhile, our conservation team and a small army of dedicated volunteers have
been quietly, unassumingly growing thousands of native plants and collaborating with
regional universities, such as the University of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky
University, to study how those plants can help restore retired croplands—all of this with
no ofces, no labs, one port-a-let, and a repurposed chicken coop as a processing facility.
And yet, this team produced more than 17,000 plants last year alone! Not to mention
several wildly popular forest and farm foraging programs, bringing our community into
the woods and felds to, once again, learn about the “sources of food and fber.”
Long Branch is seeing a resurgence of interest —this time with a decidedly 21st-century
take on how a modest farm can become a vibrant part of modern exurban lifestyles.
Te Nature Center’s emphasis on native plants—for neighborhood gardens, farm
feld restoration, and of course, for consuming—has inspired conservation within our
community in a whole new way.
So, the time has come to help Long Branch’s facilities and amenities catch up with all of
this progress and enthusiasm. To that end, we are pleased to announce that the bridge
over O’Bannon Creek will be replaced this fall with a new, two-lane bridge complete
with guard rails.
Our conservation team will soon have a new home as we break ground this fall to build
a Field Station to properly support and expand our amazing conservation, research,
and education programs at Long Branch. Te future building will serve as a hub for
work and learning, but the “feld station” will comprise the entire 200-acre area on the
northeast side of Gaynor Road. Once complete, Cincinnati Nature Center will be one of
only a few nature centers, if not the only one in the country with such a facility—truly
putting us at the vanguard of community-based conservation work.
LONG BRANCH 2.0
Jef Corney
Executive Director
(513) 965-4246
jcorney@cincynature.org
2 Newsleaf | Fall/Winter 2024