North Carolina is buying part of one of the Triangle’s ‘last vast wilderness areas’
Just east of Interstate 95, less than 35 miles from downtown Raleigh, is an area of cypress and lowland hardwood forests so vast that it’s visible from space.
These swampy woods along the winding Neuse River were thought to be so full of venomous snakes and moonshine stills that they became known as the “Let’Lones,” as in better just leave that place alone. Biologists and conservationists have had their eye on them for decades, in hopes of preserving one of the largest remaining undeveloped areas of the Triangle.
Now the state is buying 1,127 acres in the Let’Lones, along a potential corridor of The Mountains-to-Sea Trail. The seller is the Triangle Land Conservancy, a nonprofit group that purchased the land in 2019.
Johnston County was already quickly transitioning from farmland to suburban subdivisions 30 years ago when the land conservancy first identified the Let’Lones, or Neuse Lowgrounds, as an important natural area worth protecting. Over the last decade, the county grew faster than any other in the state, and developers are starting to look to rural areas east of I-95.
“This was always kind of one of the last vast wilderness areas of the Triangle,” said Leigh Ann Hammerbacher, a director of land protection and stewardship for the conservancy. “With that said, there’s now water and sewer lines in the area. It is very close to the 70 Bypass. So we’ve seen a lot more growth and development than we ever anticipated with Johnson County being the fastest-growing county in the state right now.”
The conservancy bought the 1,127 acres from the children of Goldsboro physician Joseph Hester for $2.9 million, the same amount it will receive from the state in a deal approved last week. The state is drawing from four conservation funds to pay for the land, with the largest share coming from the N.C. Land and Water Fund.
The property includes 650 acres of floodplain, 70 acres of farmland transitioning to meadow and oxbow lakes where the twisting Neuse River has been cut off from itself.
“The Neuse goes from having a floodplain of a couple hundred feet north of Smithfield to having a floodplain that’s almost four miles wide at the base of the lowgrounds,” Hammerbacher said.
In addition to snakes, the land provides habitat for migrating birds and waterfowl as well as fox squirrels, black bears and bobcats.
The property is across the river from the Howell Woods Environmental Learning Center, a 2,800-acre preserve owned by Johnston County Community College. Hammerbacher said conservationists hope to connect the two properties in the future and protect others in the area.
Planning for public access just getting started
As of now, the N.C. Division of Parks and Recreation has no firm plans for the Hester land, other than to make it available for The Mountains-to-Sea Trail, said spokeswoman Katie Hall.
The trail extends 1,175 miles, mostly over land, from Clingmans Dome in Great Smoky Mountains National Park to Jockey’s Ridge State Park in Nags Head. At Smithfield, the plan was for the trail to follow the Neuse through the Let’Lones to Goldsboro, but the area is quick to flood and slow to drain, said Betsy Brown, outreach manager for Friends of The Mountains-to-Sea Trail.
“It’s a really challenging place to build a trail for the long term,” Brown said.
So trail planners proposed a new route heading south from Smithfield toward Bentonville Battlefield and other public lands and up through Jacksonville to the Outer Banks. The northern route along the Neuse is still a possibility, Brown said, but not in the near future.
Meanwhile, The Mountains-to-Sea Trail also includes a water option, the Neuse River Paddle Route, which follows the river from Smithfield through the Let’Lones, between the Hester land and Howell Woods, to Goldsboro, Kinston and eventually New Bern and Pamlico Sound.
The land conservancy refers to the Hester land as the Brogden Bottomlands, a reference to the topography and a small community nearby. Movie star and Johnston County native Ava Gardner grew up in Brogden.
“The house she was born in is actually across the road from this property,” Hammerbacher said. “We imagine that she probably tromped around the woods that are now part of this acquisition.”
The Brogden Bottomlands is not open to the public yet, but the Triangle Land Conservancy and the state may offer guided tours in the future.
This story was originally published June 14, 2022 at 11:28 AM.
