Wahkeena State Memorial

To get there, take U.S. 33 six miles south from Lancaster and turn right onto County Road 86, then left onto Pumping Station Road about 2 miles to the entrance.

Mr. and Mrs. Frank Warner bequeathed this 150 acres of wooded hills, a small lake, and lodge to the Ohio Historical Society to be used as an outdoor nature laboratory. Black Hand sandstone outcroppings provide a scenic backdrop to many of the trails. Native trees include hemlock, pitch, scrub, and white pines, flowering dogwood, redbud, common alder, chestnut, black walnut, tulip, black cherry, mocker nut hickory, shingle, pin, rock chestnut, and white oaks, sassafras, red maple, sourwood, red elm, sweet birch, bigtooth aspen, white ash, black locust, American beech, and ironwood.

Wahkeena is a delightful place to study spring wildflowers. A few of the many to be found are creeping phlox, fire-pink, wild columbine, bluebells, bluets, Jacob's ladder, long-spurred violet, common periwinkle, wild cranesbill, speedwell, swamp buttercup, hairy Solomon's seal, kidney-leaf crowfoot, marsh marigold, spring avens, bloodroot, bulbous bitter cress, false Solomon's seal, large-flowered trillium, May-apple, rue anemone, spring beauty, striped white violet, wild strawberry, showy orchis, and pink lady's slipper.

Rhododendron and mountain laurel are plentiful, and the cool, wooded hillsides and rocky damp spots provide fine habitat for many species of ferns, among them the ostrich, Christmas, wood, marginal shield, fragile, common polypody, ebony spleenwort, interrupted, sensitive, cinnamon, upland lady, rattlesnake, marsh, broad beech, maidenhair, silvery spleenwort, New York, evergreen wood, bulblet, blunt-lobed woodsia, and water clover, or pepperwort.

There are birds aplenty, too. A pair of Wood Ducks nest every year in a box at the northeastern end of the lake. Pied-billed Grebes, Mallards, Blue-winged Teals, and Northern Shovelers sometimes show up; a pair of Spotted Sandpipers sometimes nest somewhere nearby, and Belted Kingfishers are resident as long as the water is open. Most years, a pair of Green-backed Herons nest in the trees near the lake. The lake is also a favorite feeding spot for Northern Rough-winged and Barn Swallows.

Red-tailed Hawks are seen year-round and, in summer, a pair of Broad-winged Hawks are frequently noted soaring overhead. During spring and fall migrations, a full spectrum of flycatchers, thrushes, vireos, warblers, orioles, tanagers, and finches are often present after a big migration wave.

Nesting species readily seen and heard around the lodge and lake include Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Downy Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, Eastern Phoebe, Blue Jay, Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, White-breasted Nuthatch, Carolina Wren, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, American Robin, Gray Catbird, Brown Thrasher, Cedar Waxwing, White-eyed and Warbling vireos, Blue-winged and Yellow-throated warblers, Common Yellowthroat, Yellow-breasted Chat, Summer Tanager, Northern Cardinal, Indigo Bunting, Song Sparrow, American Goldfinch, and Northern Oriole.

Birds that usually nest in the deeper woods are the Ruffed Grouse, Eastern Screech-Owl, Barred Owl. Red-bellied and Hairy woodpeckers, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Acadian and Great Crested flycatchers, Wood Thrush, Yellow-throated and Red-eyed vireos, and the following warblers: Cerulean, Black-and-white, American Redstart, Worm-eating, Ovenbird, Louisiana Waterthrush, Kentucky, and Hooded. Also Scarlet Tanager and Rufous-sided Towhee.

Hiking along the trails at Wahkeena is invigorating any time of the year, and winter is no exception. An occasional Pileated Woodpecker is sometimes heard or seen flying across a clearing; Red-belliedWoodpeckers and Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers are frequently present, and a nice variety of birds can be seen at the feeders around the lodge.