Planning a visit? Click to download the Webster Woods Preserve Guide
A mile long, easy to walk trail is now open to the public at Webster Woods Preserve. It can be reached by taking Highway 56 West out of Hanover to County Road 1066 West. Turning south brings visitors to a dead end road. Parking is usually available at the unused church.
The trailhead can be reached a hundred feet or so down the road, to the right. There, a sign will announce your arrival at Tulip Tree Trail.
Traveling west on the trail, you will see how blown over trees have left behind depressions that are now nurseries for frogs. The trail loops northward next, through patches of mayapples and a grove of nice-sized Tulip trees. Interpretive signs are posted along the way.
Dan and Juanita Webster bought this woods in 1976, partly, I suspect, as a get-away from Hanover College where Dan taught biology for many years, but also for a place where Dan could take his classes to study forest recovery.
The Websters presented the woods to OHC and it became our first nature preserve before their deaths in 2010 and 2011. They would be pleased to know that you spent time in the woods they loved so much.
Many thanks to the volunteers who built Tulip Tree Trail and to the Community Foundation of Madison and Jefferson County, who generously helped fund the work.
— Excerpt from Paul Carmony’s article in the 2015 Oak Heritage Conservancy newsletter
