Hayes Arboretum
Indiana
On the east side of Richmond, Indiana, an inventor named Stanley Hayes began buying land in nineteen fifteen with an unusual goal. He had grown up knowing old-growth forest and watched it disappear as Indiana farmland expanded. So he started reforesting his property with native trees, experimenting with planting methods, and buying adjacent parcels to protect what remained.
By the time he was done, Hayes had assembled four hundred sixty-six acres that included some of the last old-growth forest in Indiana. He began planting additional native trees in nineteen twenty-two, purchased a log cabin homestead dated eighteen fifteen, and eventually created a nature preserve with hiking trails, Adena and Hopewell Indian mounds, ponds, and wetlands. Today Hayes Arboretum is open to the public and protects about sixty acres of old-growth beech and maple forest, a remarkable remnant along a corridor that has otherwise been almost entirely cleared.
