Poland Forest: Rooted in family
Zedaker tradition continues at Poland Municipal Forest
By Ashley Luthern
Poland
Seventy-five years ago, Grace Butler had 212 acres of wooded land prone to flooding. She couldn’t develop or sell it, so she donated it.
In 1938, the recipient of her donation, Poland Village Council, approved an ordinance establishing the Poland Municipal Forest on that land. The ordinance included language from Butler’s deed, which stated the land was to be kept in a natural state.
Sycamore, maple, oak, poplar and numerous other trees — some more than 350 years old — have continued to grow along rugged forest trails because of the stipulation.
“The trees are so tall and beautiful. It’s nice, quiet, shady,” said Marge Wentz of Youngstown, walking through the woods’ College Street entrance last week.
Not many structures stand in the forest, and the few that do were built mainly by Boy Scout troops.
“The way I interpret it is not to change it like Boardman Park where they do buildings, baseball fields and soccer fields,” said Bob Zedaker, the forest board’s chairman.
“We keep things as natural as possible and try to let things be the way they are, except we do have some problems with invasive species.”
Zedaker’s involvement with the forest goes back longer than his 25 years on the board. As local historian and former village Councilman Ted Heineman put it, it’s impossible to talk about the forest without talking about the Zedaker family.
Jack Zedaker, Bob’s grandfather, built the first pavilion with the National Youth Administration in 1940. Jack’s son, Robert Zedaker, was on the forest board, followed by Robert “Bob” Zedaker Jr. Bob’s son, Robert Zedaker III, built the gateway to the Bluebell Trail in 1998 for his Eagle Scout project. On a sunny afternoon last week, Bob brought his 4-year-old grandson, Robert “Robin” Zedaker IV, to the woods.
The two explored a hollow sycamore tree as Bob lifted Robin into the trunk.
“I used to climb there when I was a kid. That was our tunnel. I’m still a kid,” he said with a chuckle. “I still play Boy Scout.”
Bob is Scoutmaster for Troop 44, which helps clean the park along with other volunteers. The forest board is funded by the village council, but most of the money for forest maintenance comes from two nonprofit organizations, the Forest Foundation and the Friends of the Forest.
Crossing a bridge that his nephew’s Scout troop built, Bob veered off a trail and glanced up at a small wooden sign, nearly hidden by branches.
“My brother built a cabin here,” he said. “Anybody could use it, but when he and his friends grew up, it was vacant.”
The cabin had a potbelly stove, bunk beds and a floor made of tombstones discarded from the cemetery. It became a trouble spot for Poland police when it was vacant.
“People started doing drugs there in the 1970s — there was a lot of that stuff going on then,” he said.
The cabin suffered fire damage and was eventually torn down. The sign bearing the names Phil and Dave Zedaker is the only evidence that a cabin even existed.
Most of the 265-acre forest lies in a floodplain. Water funnels under Interstate 680 and joins Drake Run, a creek that flows through the forest and under the Bluebell Trail.
“Pretty much what it is, is all the water from Boardman that is not detained in any way,” Bob Zedaker said. “It’s like a concrete highway to the woods.”
The forest board plans to replace the washed-out part of the trail with a box culvert pipe by fall, Zedaker said.
Flooding also swells Yellow Creek, leading to erosion on its banks.
But the source of these problems also is the very reason the forest exists today.
“Basically, the whole area is subject to flooding, and that’s one of the reasons the land was donated,” Heineman said.
Some people have wanted to rename the forest Butler Woods, after the matriarch who gave the land, but that didn’t catch on.
“A lot of people call it the Poland Woods, and I would say 90 percent of the people call it the woods,” Heineman said. “They say, ‘I’m going down to the woods,’ not ‘I’m going down to the forest.’”