The Continuing Process of Restoration, 1948–Present

The process of restoration of the Shack lands did not end with Dad’s passing. Quite the contrary. It was picked up by several of his children and by some key neighbors and Wisconsin-based foundations, and ultimately by the Leopold Foundation staff, which continued by expanding the prairies. In this regard, some special recognition is due my sister Nina and her second husband, Charles Bradley, for their initial work developing new prairie areas in Sauk County. Their methods in building a prairie were novel additions to the work/technology that Aldo Leopold and John Curtis had started at the UW Arboretum in Madison. During the years 1940–1948, Dad continued to purchase more acres, so that by 1948 our holdings were about 350 acres in Fairfield Township, Sauk County. These acres were all contiguous with the original Shack lands. Nearby, Mother and Dad’s friends the Thomas Coleman family had over the years enjoyed the log cabin they had built on their land high above Lake Chapman overlooking the great marsh and floodplain. Reed Coleman, the younger son of Tom Coleman, with conservation in mind, in time wanted to expand the land holdings his father had purchased on the south side of the river road across from Lake Chapman. Reed and his colleague and friend Howard Mead laid a plan for the L. R. Head Foundation to gradually purchase nearby parcels of land as they became available from retiring farmers. The Head Foundation was able to compile a huge protected reserve surrounding the 350 or so acres that Dad had bought. It was a creative effort to protect the land of the region from being degraded by home developers and the like. Over the years from 1950 to the 1970s the Head Foundation succeeded in building what is now called the Aldo Leopold Memorial Reserve. This expansive project served indeed to stave off local development. Reed said that his effort was inspired by witnessing the subdividing of the old Gilbert farm along the river into slices of land for summer homes, and he did not want this to happen around either the Shack or the original Coleman land area.