David and Janice Smith, a retired, conservation-minded couple, have worked in collaboration with Swan Trust to protect their streamside property.
The Trust originally purchased 6.5 acres at the mouth of Star Branch where it flows into Big Swan Creek. This transaction took place in 1999 with partial funding from the Tennessee Environmental Endowment.
Next Swan Trust purchased approximately 50 acres of the Smith’s land located at the southern end of their property, where the Cox Branch tributary joins Big Swan Creek.
This land is characterized by about one mile of riparian corridor, adjacent flood plain fields, and a wooded hillside that adjoins the Star Branch and the Baggs Land. This property has already been included in the USFWS bird monitoring project started in 1999.
In 2007, Swan Trust received a $25,000 grant from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service for the purchase of an additional 17-acre tract from the Smiths, property which included a boiling springs, a water source with an outflow into Big Swan Creek of several hundred gallons a minute.
One of several meadows along Big Swan Creek, formerly owned by the Smith’s.
Protected Land