An argument can be made that, while Turkey Run State Park may not have been Indiana’s first, it ranks as the most spectacular. Col. Richard Lieber, a.k.a. the Father of Indiana State Parks, wanted its canyon land to be No. 1. And during this 100th anniversary of the state park system, Purdue University Press chose to publish a coffee table book devoted to the Parke County reserve with the subtitle: A Celebration of Indiana’s Second State Park in Photographs and Words.
I wouldn’t for a second disagree with the case for Turkey Run. The narrow, stark sandstone gorges in the Rocky Hollow-Falls Canyon Nature Preserve – lined with ferns, hydrangeas, and native hemlock trees – are unsurpassed in their distinct natural beauty, based on my decades of Indiana nature travels, anyway.
But from granddaughter Raina and my experience last Sunday, Shades State Park and its Pine Hills Nature Preserve a few miles up the Sugar Creek would edge Turkey Run out of the top spot if ranking nature preserves were any more reasonable than ranking grandchildren. That may, however, reflect my bias toward the less-developed Shades – and the fact that Pine Hills was Indiana’s first Dedicated State Nature Preserve.