As a reporter, you spend some days tied to the desk, calling, emailing, researching and writing, slogging through the story of the day.
Other days, you put on jeans and hiking shoes and head to Cincinnati’s newest forest preserve. Even if it’s raining.
That’s what I did in early May to see where the William Forest (really; his middle name!) Northcutt Nature Preserve is taking shape along Hillside Avenue in Delhi Township.
Earth Day press release calls for field trip
The story, like some The Enquirer covers, started as a press release. The Western Wildlife Corridor marked Earth Day with an announcement that it bought more than 21 acres from the Northcutt family. That brought its total forested acre holdings to 460 and advanced its effort to create forest from Downtown Cincinnati to the Indiana border.
A tour of the site helped bring the news alive.
When I arrived, I joined Matt Trokan and three friends in an unsuccessful search for stairs and stone walls around a long-gone vineyard. Trokan, the nonprofit’s executive director, suggested we return to the property’s house when the rough uphill path pretty much disappeared. (Enquirer photographer Sam Greene pushed on a bit further, and got a decent look at old walls on the terraced hillside.)
Story mentioning preserve ‘spoke to me,’ Northcutt son says
Back at the house, Mike Northcutt recounted his time along Hillside Avenue. Visiting his grandma. Searching for pawpaws. Living, for a while, in a small house next door. Visiting again when his own parents took ownership. Explaining his dad’s love of nature. Finding a newspaper story his dad saved that featured the Western Wildlife Corridor and deciding that it should own the family property.
“It spoke to me,” said of the clipping he found after his father’s 2024 death.
The preserve named for his dad will be ready for visitors this summer. His father-in-law is helping create the sign that will mark it.
“He wanted to see the land stay as it was,” Mike Northcutt said of his dad.
It was worth a trip, in the rain, to hear those details.
Patricia Gallagher Newberry is an enterprise reporter on the team that covers government, politics and business.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Hike in the rain provides path to son who honored dad’s love of nature
Reporting by Patricia Gallagher Newberry, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
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By Patricia Gallagher Newberry, Cincinnati Enquirer | USA TODAY Network
