Background

Mission Statement and Management Intent

The University is committed to the ecological restoration and stewardship of the DePauw University Nature Park to serve the purposes of education, research, reflection and recreation for the members of the University and neighboring communities.

Location and Access

The Nature Park is within walking distance (less than one mile) from the main campus (beginning from the outdoor tennis courts) and from the center of Greencastle (along west Walnut Street). The connecting trail from DePauw’s main campus to the Nature Park intersects a branch of a planned route for People Pathways which runs south through the DePauw arboretum beginning with a planned trailhead at the south end of the DePauw intramural fields. Vehicle access is along a half-mile-long entry road running south from west Walnut Street. Click here for directions to the Nature Park.

History of the Site

In fall 2003, DePauw received about 450 acres of an abandoned quarry site through a gift and a long-term lease from Hanson Aggregates. DePauw purchased some adjacent farmland and woodlands to make the total property nearly 500 acres. The DePauw University Nature Park consists of early to mid-successional woodlands and fields adjacent to Big Walnut Creek as well as ephemeral and permanent ponds.

Between 1917 and 1977 the Nature Park was the site of a limestone quarry, where rock was blasted from the quarry walls, crushed into limestone aggregate and then transported off-site by rail. Limestone rock in the quarry began formation approximately 350 million years ago from the remains of animals living on the bottom of an inland sea that covered this area. The layers of remains of are the basis of the rock layers observed in the quarry walls. The observant visitor can locate fossil crinoids, brachiopods and bryozoans in the rock.

The various trails in the Nature Park take visitors through the bottom of the quarry and around its high wall, through the surrounding mid-successional woodlands, along what was once the quarry’s rail line, and the banks of Big Walnut Creek.