BLUES CREEK PRESERVE AWAITS COUNTY VISITORS
9627 Fontanelle Road, Ostrander

Drive down a rough gravel road through the trees, and you'll come to a rolling meadow.

At the top of the meadow is a big, bright playground structure that invites climbing, sliding and swinging. Huddled nearby is a herd of child-size dinosaurs, motionless and watchful.

There are picnic tables, two shelter houses, restrooms and the arc of a beautiful pedestrian bridge over Blues Creek. It's a great place for a family picnic on a breezy summer day.

Blues Creek Preserve, near Ostrander, was the second acquisition for Preservation Parks of Delaware County. An anonymous donor provided the funds for the 97.5 acre site in 1993 with the hopes that it would become a community family gathering place, nature education center and peaceful green oasis in the tide of development moving into the county.

Early in 1995, Preservation Parks was awarded a grant from the Federal Land and Water Conservation Fund to develop a family picnic area at Blues Creek Preserve. It was one of only nine projects in the state to receive such a grant. Fifty other applicants were turned down. And so the park was built, according to plan and through the labors of scores of volunteers. It was all put in place by members of the Delaware Rotary Club, Ohio Wesleyan University’s Rotaract Club, The Olentangy Rotary Club, Ostrander Boy Scout Troop 184 and their families. Materials and equipment were donated by a number of local construction and supply companies. Their efforts were a gesture of support and belief.

True to its environmental commitments, Preservation Parks used recycled materials wherever possible, right down to state of the art composting toilets in the restroom facilities. The heart of what could be one of the finest community parks in Central Ohio was in place. With funds from a federal Recreational trail Grant, a one-mile combination gravel and boardwalk loop trail winds across a meadow and through the woods. Also available are approximately two miles of grass trails through a meadow and around a wetland. Blues Creek Preserve was opened to the public in 2001.