Purchase preserves Eno River land
The Eno River Association buys a 66-acre tract
Cheryl Johnston Sadgrove, Staff Writer

News & Observer
Thursday, December 29, 2005

Evelyn Lloyd calls it the last hill on the mountain.

Her father, Allen Lloyd, bought it in the 1960s to keep it from being mined.

After years of turning down real estate and timbering offers, the Lloyds decided now was the time to sell their 66 acres along the Eno River, southwest of Hillsborough, to the Eno River Association.

" By doing it this way, it will be taken care of forever," said Lloyd, who, like her father, grew up in Hillsborough, serves on the Town Board and runs a pharmacy in town.

" It's a very beautiful spot," said Klugh Jordan, the association's land protection specialist. "The northern-facing slope is actually an area that contains a number of rare-to-the-Piedmont plants."

Those plants include the mountain spleenwort and wild sarsaparilla, which grow in the cool shade of a large rock wall jutting over a wooded ravine.

Healthy thickets of rhododendron, mountain laurel and galax also can be found.

The Lloyds sold the property to the association for $475,000, to be paid out over two years.
The association in turn will sell the property to the state to add it to the neighboring Occoneechee Mountain State Natural Area next year, said Robin Jacobs, president of the association. That will increase the size of the 124-acre state park area by about 50 percent.

The state plans to extend its mountain trails onto the property, likely going to the north-facing slope. That area is also called Panther's Den, based on rumored mountain lion sightings, Lloyd said.

Lloyd, who is a member of the Eno River Association, said she and her 91-year-old dad will give some of the sale price back to the association as a donation this year and next year.

Jacobs said the first donation arrived this week and was "extremely generous."

Both Lloyd and her father have described themselves as conservationists with an interest in protecting the Eno River.

" I'm just glad to be sure that it's in good hands and that it will become part of the state park," she said.

Staff writer Cheryl Johnston Sadgrove can be reached at 932-2005 or cheryl.johnston@newsobserver.com.

Published in the News & Observer on Thursday, December 29, 2005