County to buy parcel adjacent to Riverside State Park

Gary Trautman took a break from cleaning his late father’s ranch near Nine Mile Falls on Tuesday to watch the wind twirl wheels on a weather vane fixed to a fence post.

“He called that ‘Farmer John,’ ” said Trautman, pointing to the tin silhouette of a farmer sitting atop a tractor. Hours before, county commissioners signed off on a sales agreement with the heirs of John L. Trautman, a former schoolteacher and rancher who died last year.

Spokane County will buy 280 acres of parkland, lengthening an already extensive trail system at Riverside State Park and granting outdoor enthusiasts access to pristine wetlands and forests.

The purchase price of $753,000 will come from a budget designated for buying land that will be conserved, meaning Trautman’s acreage will be maintained in its current state with some light trails added that will connect to the system already in place at the adjacent Riverside park

Maintenance of the land will fall to the state’s Parks Department, which currently maintains area surrounding the property as part of Riverside. Chris Guidotti, manager of Riverside, said Trautman’s land will afford parkgoers several new ecological areas to discover and access to different wildlife.

“You have a really neat wetland near the old Trautman house,” Guidotti said. “We had some moose there, a mother and two calves, that were living in that lusher area last summer.”

The existing trail system and parking on the southwest corner of the property will allow easy trail connections, Guidotti said. That state-owned trailhead is also just across the street from the northern terminus of the Centennial Trail that leads through downtown Spokane.

Trautman’s land had been eyed by conservationists for some time. Eric Erickson of the Inland Northwest Land Trust first met with the rancher in 2005 to survey his property, then again in 2010. Erickson said that Trautman was enthusiastic about getting conservation status for his property, but didn’t want to leave the peaceful valley in his final years.

“Even though it’s a half mile away from houses and roads, you can’t hear a thing down there,” Erickson said. “I think he really wanted to live out his life there.”

Gary Trautman said there was interest in the property from private developers, but he knew his father wanted the ranch to be parkland.

“That was his wish, for this to be part of Riverside State Park,” Gary Trautman said. “There were some private interests that I kept at arm’s length, in hopes that this would go through.”

The county stepped in shortly after John Trautman’s death last May and began talking to his heirs about purchasing the property. The Trautman family agreed to invest 10 percent, or roughly $75,000, of the purchasing price back into an endowment fund for maintenance of the land. The state Parks Department will be responsible for light maintenance on the property, including installing some low-impact trails and other routine measures to protect wildlife, Guidotti said.

The county’s parks department could move much faster to buy the property than the state, Guidotti said. He gave credit to Spokane County Parks Director Doug Chase and Parks Planner Paul Knowles for working fast to buy the property for the enjoyment of future generations.

“Without the county, this could have gone into private developers’ hands,” he said.

Several buildings, including Trautman’s home, remain on the property. The county will pay for the demolition of some of the buildings, though Erickson said he hopes some of the pole barns and hay barns are preserved and moved from the property, rather than being torn down.

The main benefit of the Trautman property, Erickson said, is the diversity of wildlife and geography it presents, right in the middle of an existing park system. Walking through some sage grass on the property Tuesday, Erickson stopped to listen to the croaking of frogs from a pond fed by a natural spring.

“This is a great place to come, and sit, and contemplate your navel,” he said.