Projects
The Projects series (1.3 linear feet) details the major land preservation projects undertaken by LTC (many other minor projects not mentioned in this series are referred to in other series, particularly in the Tom Bailey Files and the Horace M. Huffman, Jr. Files). The subseries are as follows: the Thorne Swift Nature Preserve Project, the North Point Project, and the Colonial Point Forest Project.
The Thorne Swift Nature Preserve Project subseries spans 1976-1984 and contains documents relating to its establishment and management. Included in the subseries are many newspaper articles and one photograph of a Lake Michigan beach.
The North Point Project subseries consists of one binder kept by Tom Bailey. Included in the subseries are minutes of the North Point Committee meetings that describe the project's progress, correspondence, and clippings.
The Colonial Point Forest Project subseries describes one of LTC's largest and most ambitious undertakings and is consequently its most extensively documented project. The subseries is divided into six sub-subseries which roughly represent the major phases of the project. They are Initial stages, Foundations and endowments, Project work, Follow-up activities, Miscellaneous items, and Tom Bailey's Colonial Point files. There are two files entitled "Land Trust Fund," one found within the Initial stages sub-subseries and covering March 1985-August 1986 and the other found in the Foundations sub-subseries and covering May 1985-June 1987. The information is similar in content and some of it is duplicated.
Some controversy arose while the project was ongoing when an Indian claim to the land surfaced. A legal document dating from 1917 was eventually discovered that was accepted as voiding the claim, however. This topic is dealt with in the Indian title claim files within the Initial stages sub-subseries and the Tom Bailey's Colonial Point files sub-subseries, and also in newspaper clippings and letters found within the General correspondence files of the Project work sub-subseries.
Of some minor interest in the Follow-up activities sub-subseries is correspondence with Willard Scott of the "Today Show" regarding an invitation for him to conduct a weather report from Colonial Point Forest. In the end he was unable to do so, however.
The items in the final sub-subseries, Tom Bailey's Colonial Point files, duplicate or supplement the rest of the series and provide a useful "at-a-glance" summary of the project.