GENEVA, Ind. — More than 100 years ago, an area of wetlands near Geneva served as an inspiration for novels and nature books written by Hoosier native Gene Stratton-Porter.

That inspiration slowly dried up starting in the late 1800s, as the land was drained in an attempt to rid the area of disease and for farmland, timber, gas and oil. By 1913, with much of her beloved Limberlost Swamp gone and to protect against her ever-increasing popularity, Porter moved north to Sylvan Lake in Noble County.

Now, some of those wetlands are making a comeback, as they’re being restored to how they may have looked during Stratton-Porter’s lifetime.

“She was interested in nature all her life and I think she’d be very pleased and overjoyed (with the restoration),” said Randy Lehman, site manager of the Limberlost State Historic Site. “After she left, she never came back. It was too painful to see what happened to the area she’d studied.”

The historic site features the 14-room log cabin Stratton-Porter and her husband, Charles, built in 1895. It was there she wrote six novels, including her two biggest sellers, A Girl of the Limberlost and Freckles, and five nature books. Stratton-Porter wrote a total of 26 novels, nature and children’s books and books of poetry.

Born in Wabash County in 1863, she was killed in an automobile accident in Los Angeles in 1924. 

In Stratton-Porter’s time, the Limberlost Swamp covered about 13,000 acres in southern Adams and northern Jay counties. She would have been able to see some of the wetlands from her home.

The idea to restore the wetlands began with Ken Brunswick, east-central regional ecologist with the Indiana Division of Nature Preserves. He moved with his family from Ohio to the area in 1976, and in 1979 and 1980, rented farmland. Both years he lost crops to flooding.

“We weren’t in the business of milking cows and farming just to break even,” he explained. “After we had the flooding, I started studying the wetlands around here and working part-time with the Jay County SWCD (Soil and Water Conservation District) as a wetlands restoration coordinator, I was able to go around the county looking for wetlands to restore.”

In 1991, Brunswick met at the Limberlost historic site with members of the Jay County SWCD, Friends of the Limberlost and Acres, Inc., a land trust, to discuss a restoration plan.

“Because I’d had the time to study the wetlands and had been able to survey some of the area, by the time I met with them, I already had a plan on how to do the restoration,” he said. “For those nine or 10 years I was studying the flooding, I was thinking, ‘Why isn’t someone doing something about this?’ By 1991, that’s when I had it hit me that maybe it’s me who should be doing something about it.”

The USDA’s Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP), launched in 1992, provided a boost to the restoration plan, Brunswick noted.

With WRP, interested landowners were paid by the government to enter their land into the program, he said. Many of those landowners weren’t interested in retaining ownership of the property, so Friends of the Limberlost and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) were able to purchase it at residual value.

Money to buy the land came from the Indiana Heritage Trust, which is funded by the purchase of environmental license plates. A $25 fee for those license plates goes for land purchases by several DNR divisions, including the Division of Nature Preserves, Brunswick said.

So far, slightly more than 2,000 acres of public and private land have been placed under conservation easement, and about two-thirds of that has been restored, Brunswick stated. Sites included are the Loblolly Marsh Wetland Preserve, the Limberlost Swamp Wetland Preserve and Rainbow Bend Park, all near Geneva.

Brunswick hopes to eventually see about 4,000 acres of wetlands restored in the area. More than $5 million has been spent so far, but the benefit to taxpayers is they’re no longer asked to pay for damage that might have occurred to crops due to flooding, he said.

“My goal all along has been to take care of all the land that’s flooding. I want to help relieve farmers of land causing them problems. We’re looking for land that’s a problem,” he added.

In order to restore the area to wetlands, drainage tile was removed to allow water onto the land. Native plants such as Arrowhead, River Bulrush and Burr Reed were put in. Prairie areas were planted with native wildflowers and grasses such as Big and Little Bluestem, switchgrass and Indiangrass. Trees were planted in bottomland areas and over time, invasive species of plants will be removed.

“Farming was such a poor use for this land,” Brunswick stated. 

“Corn and soybeans aren’t aquatic plants. Now we’ve got this restored and we have all these truly aquatic plants out there. This is also bringing the birds back. Once we put the water on the land, they were back.”

The Limberlost State Historic Site is open Tuesday-Saturday over the winter, and Wednesday-Sunday from April to mid-December. Admission is $3.50 for adults, $3 for those 55 and older, $2 for children ages 4-12 and free for children 3 and younger.

A welcome center will be under construction this summer, with a fall completion date expected. School and group tours are welcome. Visitors may also tour some of the wetlands at no charge from dawn to dusk. Maps are available at the historic site. Naturalists are also available for guided tours.

For more information, contact the site at 260-368-7428 or visit www.indianamuseum.org/limberlost