Spring Valley Wildlife Area
Wayne Township, Warren County, Ohio
Marker Inscription
Nearly 90% of Ohio’s wetlands are gone, but some remain in glaciated northern areas and near Lake Erie. Spring Valley Wildlife Area, once a fur farm, now hosts over 230 bird species and showcases diverse wetland, brushland, and forest wildlife.
Erected by Ohio History Connection
The Story
When European settlers arrived, Ohio was nearly a fifth wetland — but two centuries of draining and tiling for farmland erased close to 90% of it, leaving only remnants in the glaciated north and along Lake Erie. This tract in the Little Miami valley carries an odd chapter of that story: it once operated as a fur farm before being reclaimed as protected habitat. Today its restored mosaic of marsh, brushland, and forest draws more than 230 bird species, a small standing rebuke to all that was lost.
Why it matters
It marks the larger American reckoning with a landscape we transformed almost beyond recognition — and the 20th-century conservation impulse that began buying back and protecting the wild places earlier generations drained away.
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Nearby & related markers
George Barrett Cement House
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In 1853, after fire claimed his home, an Ohio farmer named George Barrett rebuilt not with the usual brick or timber but with cement — following a construction method he'd picked up from his own reading. It was a resourceful, self-taught choice in an era when concrete building was still a novelty in rural America, and it proved both cheaper and quicker than conventional masonry. The house he raised in Greene County's Spring Valley stood durable enough that, more than a century later in 1986, it earned a place on the National Register of Historic Places.
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McCook Field
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