RED HOUSE, W.Va. - Sitting atop Red House Hill, Putnam County's newest park offers visitors a different experience than one might find at, say, Hurricane's Valley Park.
Instead of playground equipment and athletic fields, there are 25 acres of forestland and a one-mile walking loop, making the Esther and Norman Walter Memorial Nature Park a haven for nature lovers.
A dedication ceremony for the nature park - the first of its kind in Putnam County - was held Thursday by the county parks and recreation commission and attended by those who helped develop the park and local elementary school students.
Norman Walter, who first bought the property in 1951 for his cattle farm, bequeathed the 25-acre parcel to the parks commission following his death in 2008 - with certain conditions. Timber harvesting and other outside interests are prohibited in the park.
"He wanted it left to the forces of nature," Putnam Parks Director Scott Williamson said during the dedication. "This is our version of the Cranberry Glades [in Pocahontas County]."
The Walters' daughters, Mary Creager and Martha Somers, were instrumental in helping develop the park after their father's passing.
"[When] Mom and Dad bought this property, they wanted a place in the country for us to be free and roam around the woods and pastures, and learn about the outdoors," Creager said. The sisters share a similar vision for the park's younger visitors.
Fourth-and-fifth grade students from Confidence Elementary and Hometown Elementary attended the event and completed a nature scavenger hunt along the walking trail that followed.
The field trip proved to be a hit, as youngsters inspected spice bush berries and discussed tree species.
"That's an epiphyte," Confidence fourth-grader Natalie Vaughan said, pointing at one. "It's a plant that grows on another plant."
Officials from the state Division of Forestry staffed stations where students could identify native leaves and insects.
Located on Wilkie Road off W.Va. 34 northeast of Red House, the park cost relatively little. The Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation provided $5,000 to develop the park's master plan. Williamson said the county parks commission paid about $3,000 to clear a few trees, establish the trail and create a parking area near the trail that could accommodate school buses for future field trips.
The trail was first completed in 2011, but the derecho the following summer washed out much of it. Since then, volunteers from Putnam County 4-H and Toyota Motor Manufacturing in Buffalo helped clean up and re-establish the trail. Volunteers from the Rivers to Ridges Heritage Trail and AmeriCorps also came out to help, Williamson said.
"It was very easy to do [with] very minimal cost involved," he said of the overall project.
The park is already popular among birdwatchers and researchers from the state department of agriculture taking insect counts, Williamson said.
Amid the white pine, black locust and Norway spruce trees - hundreds of which were planted by Norman Walter himself - the parks commission plans to further develop the park in the future. One of the major objectives is to get more area students to the nature park.
"There's a million different ways you can go with this," Williamson said. "We want to try to develop it over the years to [have] an interpretation of tree species, insects and animals."
Reach Elaina Sauber at elaina.sauber@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-3051 or follow @ElainaSauber on Twitter.