Preserve Description

Wind your way through meadow and woodland to Walden Pond, a small pond that anchors the property’s restored landscape. Visitors exploring the 251-acre preserve may spot a barred owl gliding over open fields or catch sight of a fox trotting along the pond’s edge. These the kind of wildlife encounters made possible by decades of careful stewardship.

The Diehl family and local volunteers began restoring this overworked farmland in 1989. The property opened to the public in 2020, and ACRES acquired it in late 2025 to continue that legacy. Restoration here is now part of a larger effort to recover the historic Great Black Swamp, a once-vast wetland ecosystem in northwest Ohio. In the future, restoration of nearly 100 acres to forested wetlands, flatwoods and emergent wetlands will help filter runoff before it reaches the Tiffin and Maumee Rivers.