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Boy's project turns into trees and trails Jim Craven photo The Jackson Forks Bridge is one of the more scenic areas on Jackson Creek, part of the 300-acre Jacksonville Woodlands trail system just minutes from downtown. Local residents and schoolchildren have turned the Woodlands into a national success story. Jacksonville Woodlands earns national attention By MELISSA MARTIN JACKSONVILLE -- When Brian Mulhollen was 11 years old, he persuaded the city of Medford to sell a 10-acre wooded lot to the city of Jacksonville. The precocious, 6-foot sixth-grader knocked on doors to help raise $1,200 to buy the acreage that would become part of a trail system attracting national attention. Today, standing 6-foot-6 at age 18, Mulhollen trains for his job as a firefighter at the Applegate Ranger District by hiking the forests he helped keep out of the hands of developers. And last week Mulhollen's company, Archer Butte Forestry, was hired to burn slash in the preserve. "This project has really grown," Mulhollen said. "It's neat to watch it evolve from a group of neighbors and folks sitting around a dining room table to having actual board meetings and attracting attention across the country." Mulhollen is a stellar member of the Jacksonville Woodlands Association, a nonprofit group of residents dedicated to preserving land. In the past decade, the association has created 6 1/2 miles of free public hiking trails on 300 forested acres. Its members have secured 16 parcels of land valued at $1 million -- from the tiniest piece, 0.13 of an acre donated by Jackson County, to the largest, 80 acres bequeathed to an heir of pioneer horticulturist, investor and photographer Peter Britt. Their first project in 1989 was buying 10 acres deeded to the University of Oregon by Carrie Beekman, daughter of pioneer banker Cornelius Beekman. "This is a great example of people of the town coming together, merchants, students, residents, service clubs, raising a substantial amount to preserve green space," said Phil Gahr, retired from the aerospace and computer industries and now raising horses in Jacksonville. He is a past president and currently a board member of Jacksonville Woodlands. "If other towns could do the same, we wouldn't have a problem with a lack of green space in this country," Gahr said. People around the country have taken note of Jacksonville's work to keep home construction off the hillsides that surround this National Historic Landmark town. Larry Smith, association president and an elementary teacher for 33 years, took students to Washington, D.C., and Florida to promote the trails and receive awards for their work with the Jacksonville Woodlands project. The White House praised Jacksonville fifth-graders in an Earth Day report released this week. And a national land trust called the Jacksonville effort unique in Oregon. "We've got projects all over the state, and this is one of my favorites," said Sam Hodder, project manager for Trust for Public Land in Portland. "It's very unique and inspiring to see a group of citizens in cooperation with their city government do so much work in such a short amount of time." The Jacksonville Woodlands has a lot going for it, Hodder said, from the presence of the rare southwest Oregon lily -- the Gentner's fritillary, an endangered species -- to a tour of Jacksonville's mining relics. "It's an incredible confluence of resources," Hodder said. His group is working with the Woodlands Association to buy the last piece of the puzzle, 15 acres called the Knoll, once eyed as a 20-home subdivision. Property owner Mark Burkhalter has offered it to the Trust for Public Land; the fair market value is likely to be $500,000 to $550,000. Burkhalter, a Medford attorney, already allowed 4.6 acres to be included in a national historic designation, and he permits hikers on the land. "We wouldn't be negotiating if we didn't believe in what (the association) is doing," Burkhalter said. The association hopes money to buy the Knoll will come from state lottery dollars marked for parks projects, land acquisition money in the proposed federal budget and funds from the city of Jacksonville, said Hodder, who is scheduled to speak to the City Council Tuesday. Children helped gain support from Oregon senators for the Knoll purchase. Smith mailed to Washington, D.C., student letters and drawings describing the Sarah Zigler Trail, which follows Jackson Creek -- the site of gold discovery in 1851 -- winds through a grove of ponderosa pines, crosses two wooden bridges and offers a look at a 210-foot sequoia planted by Britt to celebrate his son's birthday in 1862. "I will keep your words, deeds and drawings in mind; they make a difference," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wrote in a Feb. 22 letter to Smith. Another packet of letters written by Jacksonville students tugged at the heart of land owners Patricia and Michael Begley, who gave up building their dream home to sell a 10-acre portion in the Rich Gulch Diggings to the association for $88,000. "We were planning on building a house there, relocating, raising a few llamas or something like that," said Patricia Begley, a resident of San Jose, Calif. "We liked it because it was secluded, yet within walking distance of town and the school." The Begleys were working with the Planning Commission and discovering the difficulty of building a home on a steep hillside when they received the letters. "We believed in what they were doing," said Begley, a technical writer who now stays home with their 6-year-old daughter. "We like to hike and spend time outdoors. Eventually, we saw how the whole plan fit and how it made sense. Afterwards, every child in the class made us a thank-you card." The National Park Service is involved in the project, writing a general management plan for the association and naming a 24-acre section to the National Register of Historic Places. And this past week, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt named the Sarah Zigler Trail a "National Recreation Trail," meaning it may be listed in national Web sites and tourist publications. The city of Jacksonville also has been a key player in the Woodlands Association success story, Gahr said. The city wrote a master trail system plan in 1995 and began requiring developers to build trails in their subdivisions as a way of encouraging residents to walk instead of drive, said Paul Wyntergreen, city administrator. "This is a way for both tourists and residents to be able to walk, ride a bike or exercise in Jacksonville and see nice things along the way," he said. Guaranteeing the Jacksonville Woodlands stays in public ownership and is never developed, mined, logged or misused are conservation easements held by the Southern Oregon Land Conservancy, said Alex Dykema, executive director. "In 100 years, when the city is looking at development pressures or the City Council has changed, those properties have legal protection as open space or park land," Dykema said. "You couldn't turn them into ball fields or condominiums." The Southern Oregon Land Conservancy holds easements on 120 acres of hiking trails called Siskiyou Mountain Preserve and Orson Todd Woods near Ashland, where a meals tax helps fund parks. But Jacksonville's situation is unique -- property is paid for and maintained by private donations and government grants, Gahr said. "What the Woodlands Association has done in Jacksonville is extraordinary," Dykema said. "It's a wonderful example of citizens choosing and shaping the future of their community in a privately funded way." Because of the Woodlands project, the future will include a quiet place where people can hike and exercise without having to dodge traffic. "I like the trails for the diversity," said Tom Bock, who was hiking the Woodlands on a recent sunny day. Bock moved back to the Rogue Valley from the San Francisco Bay area. "You walk through so much different scenery, from the lower elevations with the stream flowing, to the top of the hill -- firs and pines in one area and oaks in the other." Retired forester Frank Schmidt and his wife, Phyllis, of Arcata, Calif., said they enjoyed the rare lilies on their recent hike in the Jacksonville Woodlands. "My husband looks up and I look down," Phyllis Schmidt said. "This is a wonderful trail and we appreciate the booklet, too," she said, referring to the hiking guides written by Smith and available for 50 cents at the trailheads. The 60,000 people who hike the trails every year are discovering something that Mulhollen learned as a child growing up in Jacksonville: The Woodlands were his playground and his classroom. He shared it with the deer, wild turkeys and the occasional spawning salmon. It was elementary school students like Mulhollen who planted 3,000 trees over the past 10 years, wrote hundreds of letters requesting donations, created trail signs, built pathways and studied botany, forestry and history in the Woodlands under the direction of Smith, their teacher. And spending time with the Woodlands steered Mulhollen into his career in forestry and firefighting. "I got to working with the trail system and decided that's where my life was wanting to go. It's been an educational tool for me," Mulhollen said. "We worked so hard to acquire the lands, build the trails and now we are maintaining the land and promoting forest health. It's great to be a part of each transition in the project." 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