Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Conservation Is Given Acreage

In a brief ceremony August 6, Weyerhaeuser Company formally donated its Fort Towson tree seedling facility to Ouachita Mountains Resource Conservation and Development Inc., an economic development association serving eight southeastern Oklahoma counties.

Bill Boeckman, manager of the Weyerhaeuser Forest Regeneration Center at Magnolia and former manager of the Fort Towson facility, made the fromal presentation of the deed for Weyerhaeuser. The deed was registered to Ouachita Mountains RC&D late last month.

"We are deeply appreciative to you for your interest," he told the RC&D representataives at the cermony, "and we wish you well. This is a wonderful piece of property and we know you will take good care of it."

The 535-acre facility, valued at more than $2 million, includes 200 irrigated deep-sand acres that were under cultivation for tree seedlings until Weyerhaeuser closed the nursery last March. The site also has a three-bedroom brick home, modern office building, equipment sheds, a packing room and a large cooler that was used to keep tree seedlings healthy before shipment.

Weyerhaeuser developed the site in 1974 to support the company's forestation program in Oklahoma. During its life, the nursery produced more thatn 1.1 billion pine and hardwood seedlings for Weyerhaeuser, other forest industries, private landowners and state organizations. The company decided to close the facility because it is distant from most of Weyerhaeuser's current seedling markets, which are concentrated in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Ouachita Mountains RC&D, headquartered in McAlester, Okla., plans to establish a first-class environmental education and information transfer facility on the site, including:

• an outdoor classroom and resource activity area for grades K-12;

• areas for colleges and private organizations to conduct land management research; and

• a conference center and applied-research demonstration area to provide continuing education for landowners and industry.