The Eno River was named after an Indigenous tribe known as the Haynoke, Oenoke, or Enoe Indians. The Eno River Association, Eno River State Park, Panther Branch Natural Area, and West Point on the Eno are located on the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Eno, Shakori, Sissipahaw, Occaneechi, and other people of Siouan descent, as well as their descendants, the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation.
Introduction
After the success of the conservation and upkeep of the Confluence Natural Area, the Eno River Association moved towards continuing to protect natural areas around the Eno River Basin. The Panther Branch project first started in 2017, when a member of the Iski family, who owned two parcels of land on Lebanon Road passed down from their maternal grandmother, contacted a real estate agent about selling the property.
The Iski family wanted to ensure preservation of the land there, and potentially open the natural space for public access. The Iski family had let the community use the property for recreation, and had a fun system of “opening” and “closing” the area using an orange cone in the driveway. They wanted the land to remain a community asset, and wanted it to go to an organization that would open the land as a park or preserve.
Robin Iski, a member of the family, said of the family’s decision, “Even when I lived there, I invited people to enjoy the trails… The idea of selling the land to a developer and dividing it up and making it into all these individual lots… that just seemed wrong to me.” The agent the Iski family contacted was well connected to the Eno River Association (ERA) through going to the Festival for the Eno for many years as a trash-free volunteer, and this agent was able to spark conversation between the Iski family and ERA. The ERA was interested due to the property being located along an unprotected stretch of the Eno River between Hillsborough and the Confluence, a parcel of land ERA already protected.
The ERA secured grants from the North Carolina Land & Water Fund, and Orange County and the City of Raleigh Watershed Protection Program to secure the property. The Panther Branch Natural Area was acquired in May 2017, and included two undeveloped parcels of land totaling 56.31 acres in Efland in Northwestern Orange County, NC. The property is bounded on the Northern and Eastern sides by the Eno River. In 2022, thanks to additional funding, a parking lot, trails, and other amenities were installed and opened to the public in 2023.
The only historical feature for this property is Lebanon Road, which was the colonial road that led from Hillsborough to Faucett Mill, a former grist mill that was built before 1792. The Faucett Mill, nearby mill cottage, and Faucett House are along a quarter mile section of the old “Great Road” which forded the Eno River two miles Northwest of Hillsborough. A collective vision to turn 56 acres of family-owned forest into a publicly accessible riverfront hiking area had become a reality.
Organizing the Conservation
The main organizers of the protection of Panther Branch included Kim Levingston and Tom Davis, two long-term ERA employees. Kim Livingston was the Director of Conservation and Stewardship, and worked with ERA from December 2014 through May 2017. She oversaw land stewardship and was responsible for updating land management plans, designing public access plans, and ensuring trail and preserve maintenance.
The property at Panther Branch needed work after it was acquired. For many years, the extensive trail system throughout the property had been used by ATVs, and many of the trails were eroded and needed to be closed. Stopping the ATV use was necessary for the Land and Water Fund easement, and it was harming the resources that the ERA was trying to protect. Tom Davis started at the association in June of 2019, and led a lot of the trail building, signage, stopping of ATV use, restoration on old sections of the road that needed to be closed, and more at Panther Branch Natural Area.
Tom built up programs such as the Site and Trail Steward programs to build groups of core volunteers for building/maintaining trails and infrastructure while also supporting other stewardship needs such as invasive species removals. Over 600 hours of volunteer work clearing bushes and forming trails were necessary to open the park to the public.
Since the ERA had just opened the Confluence, they waited a bit to officially open it. When COVID hit, the ERA was able to secure additional funding to build out the road and parking area, all while continuing to build trails with volunteers. Additional stewardship staff helped with management of the preserves to continue to be enjoyed by the public today.
Opening Day
Panther Branch Natural Area planned to celebrate its opening day on Earth Day, April 22 in 2023. After six years of work by the Eno River Association, many generous donors to both the opening day festivities and the work done to prepare the natural area, and countless volunteers, this parcel of the Eno watershed could be fully enjoyed by the public. The funding to prep the site for public opening was provided by Dominion Energy, First Horizon Foundation, Mountain Dew, the Duke Doing Good Community Fund, and general operating support.
During two days of festivities on April 20 and 22, the Association planned to celebrate the opening with a ribbon cutting ceremony, guided hikes, an introduction to a “BioBlitz” and iNaturalist training, and a scavenger hunt. Organizers offered sales of Eno merchandise, and revealed the winners of a trail-naming contest. The two trails of Panther Branch, chosen from a contest of over 200 submissions include Spoonwood and Running-cedar. The Spoonwood Loop is a moderate to easy 1.2-mile hike, while the Running-cedar Loop is an easy 1-mile trek.
The park’s opening ceremony goes hand-in-hand with the state’s 2023 Year of the Trail campaign, celebrating outdoor events and connecting North Carolian residents to trails and greenways. Along the trails, hikers could find wildflowers, bird sounds, creeks, beaver dams, small reptiles, and an overlook of the Eno River bend, one of the river’s most dramatic views.
The opening ceremony was delayed to May 18 due to extreme weather, but the ERA was still able to have a very successful event. At the opening, local musicians Charlie Garnett and Michael DeVito played folk music as volunteers and visitors were able to explore the property. Leaders from the Eno River Association spoke about the work that had gone into opening the park, highlighting the wealth of natural resources that the public would soon get to experience for themselves.
Jessica Sheffield, executive director of the Eno River Association, said “We are thrilled to add the Panther Branch Natural Area to our Eno River network, the seventh public park we helped create and the second one we will independently own and manage… This project fits squarely into our strategic commitment to proactively expand our conservation footprint and foster connections to the Eno basin. And we could not have done this without the tireless efforts of our volunteers and the collective commitment of donors to protect this forest for generations to come.”
Biodiversity in Panther Branch Natural Area
Panther Branch Natural Area features over a mile of river frontage, and helps to support the water quality of the Eno River to everyone downstream. This part of the Eno River is upstream of the Hillsborough and Orange Alamance Water System water intakes, along with being upstream of Falls Lake, which is Raleigh’s water supply. Some features of the Panther Branch Natural Area include over two miles of walking trails through fifty-six acres of mature hardwood forest, picnic tables, and a gravel parking area. This is the Eno River Association’s first footprint in Efland.
North Carolina Representative Renee Price, elected in 2022, lives on the banks of the Eno in neighboring Hillsborough, and says “Winding its way through the rural and urban parts of Orange County, the Eno River is both a natural resource and a cultural amenity, worthy to be protected and cherished.”
Panther Branch Natural Area fronts the Eno River Aquatic Habitat, identified and described by the NC Natural Heritage Program and the USFWS as Critical Habitat for the Federally threatened Neuse River Waterdog. The section of Eno River Aquatic Habitat this property fronts supports a population of three rare freshwater mussels including the federally threatened and state endangered Atlantic Pigtoe, the state threatened Notched Rainbow, and the Creeper. This area also supports a population of state significantly rare Roanoke bass, state threatened Eastern Lampmussel, state endangered Yellow Lampmussel, Triangle Floater, and Green Floater, state special concern Carolina Darter, and federally threatened and state special concern Neuse waterdog. Beavers are also prevalent in this area.
Just three miles off I-40 and I-85, Panther Branch features 1200 linear feet of creek and river frontage, 56.31 acres of intact hardwood forests, native wildflowers, 3.5 acres of freshwater forested and shrub wetlands, 16 acres of floodplains, distinct trails providing more than two miles of walking paths and a small parking lot. Visitors can hike, fish or picnic at the site, which is named after the creek that crosses the land and feeds into the Eno. Mikki Flemming, a Panther Branch Site Steward said, “This area is growing so fast, so I’m a huge proponent of doing everything we can to preserve the trees, the river, the homes for all the animals…I would love to see more people work to preserve the natural beauty of their land so future generations still have a place to visit.”
While many of the hikes are not riverside, this was chosen for an important reason. Riverwide trailed damage riparian buffers, which are forested or vegetated land along the body of water that stabilizes the streambank and remove pollutants before coming into the water. The NC Land and Water Fund limits activities within 50 feet closest to the waterway for properties they help fund.
Panther Branch in the Future
As the ERA continues to protect this land, there are many opportunities for continued protection, education, and research. This preserve will provide an outdoor classroom for educational programs and hikes for schools and private groups, led by our education staff and volunteers. Panther Branch is an ideal location for ecological research due to its diversity of populations. Research could help increase our understanding of local ecological processes and cultural history, and help the ERA with restoration and management.
The protection of the Panther Branch Natural Area could not have been achieved without the efforts of countless volunteers and the various commitments of donors to protect this area, the biodiversity within it, and the water quality downstream for generations. Panther Branch Natural Area is opened everyday from dawn to dusk, and it may one day be expanded or joined with the Confluence property to offer additional water quality protection and recreational opportunities.
Resources
With the Opening of a New Eno River Park, North Carolina’s “Year of the Trail” Just Got Better
