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ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Nation Ford Land Trust has had a major role in several substantial projects that are both prominent and not widely known:

  • In December 1998, NFLT purchased the 296-acre Carroll Property in Rock Hill and sold it to the Catawba Indian Nation.
  • In 1998, NFLT purchased 300 acres and then donated it to the South Carolina Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Department for Kings Mountain State Park.
  • In 1996, NFLT purchased 1283 acres and sold a portion to the county for Historic Brattonsville and the remainder to the state for the Draper Wildlife Management Area.
  • In 1998, NFLT, along with a few concerned citizens, helped create the York County Forever Commission. To date, the Forever Commission has conserved over 10,500 acres in York County.
  • In 2012, NFLT was awarded a USFWS grant to build a pollinator garden at Banks Trail Middle School in Fort Mill.
  • In 2014, Carolina Thread Trail awarded NFLT with a $150,000 grant to build a trail along the Catawba River, connecting from the north to the Riverwalk/Piedmont Medical Center Trail.
  • In 2015, South Carolina Parks, Recreation and Tourism granted NFLT $100,000 to build the same trail along the Catawba River.
  • Nation Ford Land Trust protects three federally endangered Schweinitz’s sunflower plots in York County.
  • In 2017, NFLT began an ongoing clean up of Sugar Creek in Fort Mill where the creek is riddled with trash and hundreds of tires.
  • In the spring of 2018, NFLT opened up the Founders Trail. This 4-year project is a 2.3-mile segment of the Carolina Thread Trail that connects from Masons Bend to the Piedmont Medical Center Trail in Riverwalk along the Catawba River.
  • In December 2018, NFLT obtained property and established The Murray White Preserve, a 154-acre site which borders Fishing Creek off of Vernsdale Rd. just south of Rock Hill.
  • In the early months of 2020, the “Riverbend Property”, now named the Catawba Bend Preserve, was purchased by York County and NFLT settled easement rights on 1,700 acres of the 1,900 acres total.
  • Just as 2021 came to a close, NFLT placed an easement on Woodend Farm, an 86-acre public recreation area for the people of Lake Wylie to restore and maintain greenspace in the developing area and the first property managed under the new Bethel Lake Wylie Preservation Park District.
  • NFLT, as of 2023, is implementing a piedmont prairie restoration project on the Murray White Preserve where, with the help of volunteers, several uncommon and rare species were found onsite.