The Barbara A. Beiser  

Field Station - Plan Your Visit

Barbara Beiser Voorhees was a 1949 graduate of Marietta College.  She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in Business. Barbara was born in Marietta and graduated from Marietta High School. Her father, John Beiser, was a circulation manager at The Marietta Times and a local golf pro. Her grandfather, Dr. John A. Beiser, was a dentist in Marietta -- his office was located at 254 Front Street from 1901 until his death in 1962. Barbara died on August 2, 2005 in Highland Park, New Jersey.  Barbara is survived by her husband Ralph, four children, 15 grandchildren, and her brother John.  Ralph  is a retired stockbroker and graduated from Rutgers University in 1948 and received his MBA from NYU in 1950. The field station property was in the Beiser family for many years and was last farmed before the Great Depression, although portions have been logged since.  

There are no facilities at the station, so prepare in advance.  The nearest facilities are at the Wayne National Forest Lane Farm Canoe Access about ½ mile northeast of the station on state route 26.  Please do not bother the neighbors with requests to use the facilities.  There are no trash cans on the property, please pack all trash out and recycle or dispose of it at home.  Pets are welcome if you control them and pick up after them.

The preserve is designated for the conservation and study of native plants and animals.  Therefore, collection of plants, animals and fungi (mushrooms, puffballs) is prohibited.  Please don’t cut firewood or removed downed trees or limbs. You may, however, pick berries for consumption while you hike, or pick leaves for a student leaf collection, or cut all the multiflora rose and honeysuckle your heart desires.  Please keep your paws off our paw-paws!  The station is also used for biological research. Please do not disturb any study plots, marker flags or equipment left on the site. 

Travel is by foot only; horses, bicycles, 4-wheelers, dirt bikes, cars, trucks or motorized vehicles of any type are not permitted.

No hunting or trapping is normally allowed.  We have contracted with a few individuals to hunt deer on the station (an excess of deer means a deficit of wildflowers).  For everyone’s safety, the station is closed during deer gun season (Dec. 1- 7 in 2008). 

Directions:  From Marietta, take state route 26 east 4.5 miles from the I77 underpass, past Grimm’s Green Acres orchard to Hills Bridge Road (CR 333) and turn right.  Proceed about 1/3 mile and bear right on Kelsey Lane, which resembles a gravel driveway.  Drive about 1/10 mile to a small parking lot with a gate.  Alternately, one can take Miller’s Lane (CR 9) north from SR 7 in Reno and turn left onto Hills Bridge Road and then left onto Kelsey Lane.

Access to the site is by foot from the small parking lot at the end of Kelsey Lane .  Please do not block the gate or road.  Additional parking is available at the end of the nearby Hills Covered Bridge on the far side of the Little Muskingum.  The field station is approximately ½ mile from the gate on Kelsey Lane .  Please stay on the graveled road all the way to the end; all of the land to either side of the road is private property and our access to the site is through the  generosity of these landowners. These properties are shaded on the map; again, please stay on the road. Once on site, please stay on the marked trails. This is particularly important near the riverbank, which is not stable.  School, scouting and other groups wanting to visit the site can arrange this by calling 740-376-4743.  Because there are no facilities, no camping is allowed.  

Map Key:  Green Dots track the recommended route from Marietta to the station along SR 26 (Greene St. in Marietta).  Orange Dots highlight an alternate route.  Parking is at a small parking lot marked PL on the map.  The gravel access road is shown in blue. The field station is outlined in red and designated BFS.  The nearest restrooms are at the Wayne National Forest Lane Farm Canoe Access (WNF).  Click here for a terrain map of the area.

We do not have a kiosk at the site with trail maps.  Please click on one of the links below to print out your own trail maps (we print them out front and back on a single sheet of paper and laminate them for use in the field).  The trail conditions page has current trail conditions and detailed descriptions and elevation profiles of the trails.

Print out Trail Map - Microsoft Word        Adobe PDF

Current Trail Conditions/Descriptions

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