CME History: A Writer Comes to the Rescue

The pen is mightier than the sword. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Back in 2016, I started a series of blog posts about the history of two GSSC-MM camps with one being Camp Mary Elizabeth (CME). CME is one of only a few camps left in the United States located in the middle of urban sprawl and is home to a very rare wildflower. Back in 1999, CME was in danger of being sold, but some folks in the community took action to save the camp from development.

I recently became reengaged with CME due to the wildflower restoration grant that we received earlier this year, and while working on the project, Tina’s husband and I started up a conversation about CME’s history and how close it came to being sold. Steve told me about John Lane, a poet and Wofford College professor who helped lead the charge to save CME through his writings. This piqued my interest, so Steve said he’d send me one of the essays Lane wrote plus an article about them. Here’s the article (click to see a larger version):

Steve and Tina also sent a copy of the original pamphlet, but it wasn’t the same essay referenced in the article. I attempted to find a copy of it online with no success. At the risk of feeling like a stalker, I did a little more research and came across Lane’s Wofford College email address and wrote him. After introducing myself, I asked if he had a copy of his award-winning essay, and if so, could I republish it on my blog? Lane replied, graciously shared the article, and gave me permission to share it here. It was originally published in Orion Afield in 1999.

Lane does an excellent job capturing why CME is such a special place and why it needs to be protected in both the following essay and the pamphlet. His words are inspiring to me over twenty years later. I retyped the article from scratch, so any typos should be attributed to me.

Finding the Real in Real Estate: Saving a Girl Scout Camp From Southern Sprawls

Doug Rayner and I are in Doug’s van, heading down West St. John, the 1920s cut-through created to drain the traffic past Spartanburg’s dying downtown. Doug, a friend and Wofford College botanist, has agreed to show me the dwarf-flowered heartleaf (Hexastylis naniflora), a local plant on the federally Endangered Species List that grows at a Girl Scout camp located within Spartanburg’s city limits. For weeks, our community has been debating whether or not Camp Mary Elizabeth, a sheltered 56-acre creek draw surrounded by subdivisions and dense commercial traffic, should leave the protection of the Girl Scouts and be developed. I want to see the camp for the first time in years, and I also want to see the dwarf-flowered heartleaf in its native habitat, what Doug calls “Piedmont bluffs.” Somehow in my mind, the two are forever linked – the hopefully survival of a rare urban camp with its rustic atmosphere of retreat and the quiet, local existence of this species, which Rayner says may be one of the rarest flowers in our upstate South Carolina county.

Downtown recedes behind us as we drive west, passing through the ancient ring of strip development from the ‘50s and ‘60s: vacant lots, a dilapidated fast-food restaurant, an abandoned drug factory. A half mile from downtown, where West Main crosses Fairforest Creek, the street turns into a divided four-lane, Ezell Boulevard. In my childhood, Ezell Boulevard was a well-kept garden with a tree-shaded median strip. Thousands of flowers bloomed in the spring. These days the area a half mile west of Mary Elizabeth is defined by a square mile of sprawl known as Westgate: traffic patterns defy logic; Wal-Mart, Sam’s Warehouse, Super K-mart, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Circuit City, Best Buy, and the Westgate Mall itself spew Suburbans and Fords into lanes of traffic headed in all four cardinal directions; square miles of parking lots sweat beads of petroleum into storm drains and creeks; small shrubs and trees struggle for space among vast slabs of asphalt; inside the mall, thousands circulate in a jerky shopping dance, half need, half desire.

The entrance to the camp is hard to reach. The two brick pillars with plaques (dedicating the camp in 1946 to the memory of Mary Zimmerman Ward and her daughter Elizabeth Ward Cannon) are lodged in a confusing snarl of roads without street signs, an old carpet store, and a half dozen houses about a hundred yards off the busy boulevard. We park the van, squeeze past the gate, and finally enter the surprising sanctuary of Mary Elizabeth. The distance from Spartanburg is greater than I would have imagined. There are bird calls, water running over stones, and for 360 degrees, through a trick of perspective and topography, I can’t see a house, even though the hardwoods are still leafless. Doug points out that the creek channel is deeply eroded, and that the floodplain is clogged in places with weeds. Some debris has been brought downstream from people’s yards. I think for a moment, there is something tragic about abused land deep in a city like this, like a wild sea bird coated with petroleum after an oil spill.

That day I walked into Camp Mary Elizabeth a writer, and I walked out an activist.

In February of 1999 an article in the Spartanburg Herald-Journal took many of us by surprise, suggesting that there was a potential complex development deal in the works for the camp. The executive director of the Girl Scouts was on record that the organization had plans for a “dream camp” with lake, horseback riding, and modern cabins. “These girls want a place away from town where they can do all sorts of activities,” she said. “Right now they think, ‘Camp Mary Elizabeth? That’s the place on the way to the mall.’” When I read these quotes in the paper I knew something had to be done or the camp was sure to pass quickly from open space to prime development site. It soon became an obsession for an emerging group of Spartanburg citizens concerned with the old “development at all costs” position of the local city council. Much of the ferment was stirred each morning in a local coffeehouse where many of us met, and soon calls and e-mail messages were flying back and forth. Rumors were rampant. “It’s a done deal,” is what those who were on the inside would whisper as we mulled over ideas for saving the camp.

Several weeks after the article appeared in the paper, a few of us were prompted to attend a city planning commission meeting at which Camp Mary Elizabeth was to be discussed. Indeed, after we were seated at the back of the meeting and checked the minutes, we found in the actions under review a paragraph describing how Mary Elizabeth was included in the long-range development plans for the city. The commission’s official position on the camp was that it should be kept from “high-density development,” but that “a planned-unit development” would be desirable, given that some open space would be preserved on the site. No mention was made of preserving the camp as a woodland preserve or park.

After the planning commission meeting we began to make phone calls and write letters. We discovered that the Girl Scouts were not of one mind on Camp Mary Elizabeth. There was a vocal group not so certain about the wisdom of selling the old resource. We were assured that the board was divided on the issue. Would the Girl Scouts sell the camp in the near future? Would they consider other options to development? In early March, on the eve of their board meeting, a “fact sheet on Camp Mary Elizabeth” was released by the official powers. It read like a rationalization for divestment; we braced for the worst.

What could private citizens do to stop the sale of the camp? We could write letters to the editor of the local paper, and that we did – in March and April a dozen letters appeared, all opposed to developing the camp. We also made sure that the issue stayed alive in the press. Half a dozen follow-up articles appeared in the local paper. But that wasn’t enough. Through conversations with people who were insiders with the city, it became apparent that everyone assumed the camp would be sold, no matter what a few “environmentalists” thought. Commercial compromise was the only solution being considered. The more I thought about it, the more overwhelmed I was by how clearly the fate of this 56 acre of hardwood on the edge of town was tied to the collapse of the center.

Though the executive director of the Spartanburg Girl Scouts kept insisting on the record that there were no negotiations, I kept hearing, “It’s a done deal, John.” The best case seemed to be compromise: that the land would be developed into a nice gated community, the trees would survive, and it would not end up a Target store – or worse. To anyone with an eye for profit, Mary Elizabeth seemed an almost irresistible asset: “location, location, location,” 56 wooded acres, a unique creek through the middle of it, much of it buildable, within the city limits of Spartanburg, dead center in one of the fastest growing strips in upstate South Carolina. Estimates of the camp’s commercial value (also circulated by rumor) have ranged from two million to five million. “That’s a lot of Girl Scout cookies,” a friend of mine commented.

Doug and I descend into the camp and find the old lodge perched on the hillside above the creek, a ropes course beyond, and two or three picnic shelters. It’s true what everyone says. This is as close to the mountains as it gets in the Piedmont. Through a long narrow draw Holston Creek has deeply creased the land. The creek is broken every 20 feet by a tiny rapid with strong flow, creating mountain-like drop pools and eddies. There is topography here. Standing next to the noisy creek, it is possible to believe that Spartanburg, and the sprawling mall less than a mile away, do not exist.

I set up the trip with Doug because I had been attending meetings and writing letters and articles for weeks, but I only felt close to the camp at the abstract level of “cause.” I needed more connection. I needed some idea of what makes this property unique and valuable beyond real estate. I now can see that restoration is possible here. It would take hard work and commitment, but Camp Mary Elizabeth could be a model urban forest preserve. There are some big white oaks on the ridges. These big trees predate the camp, and the younger hardwoods and pines have thrived undisturbed for 50 years.

I begin to talk about how I’d like to see the land used. “I’d like to see the Girl Scouts keep it and turn it into a restoration ecology lab,” I say. “I’d get the community working on restoring this forest, planting native trees, removing species that are invasive. I’d work to restore the forest to its same diversity and richness as when the first settlers arrived. Fifty years from now I’d like to see every school group in the county brought here to see what a Piedmont hardwood forest with old growth looks like. We don’t need a forest preserve to teach our children how a landscape – even a landscape as depleted and abused as the South Carolina Piedmont – can recover, even flourish.”

A little further down the trail Doug leans over and points to a small-leafed green flower growing in a patch of maybe ten plants along a drainage ditch bank. “That’s it, the dwarf-flowered heartleaf,” he says. The tiny plant is peeking out from among dry leaves. It is beautiful and fragile, so emblematic of what’s left of Piedmont landscape. Doug brushes a few crumbled leaves away, exposing the tiny colorless flowers close to the roots. “They bloom under the leaf mulch,” Doug says. “This is one of the plants most characteristic of this area. This flower may only grow in Spartanburg County. It prefers the Pacolet sandy loam soil. It’s rare but fairly widely scattered through the area.”

Stephanie Mills, author of In Service of the Wild: Restoring and Reinhabiting Damaged Land, says “a species… is a unique response to circumstance; a syllable of beauty.” The beauty of that tiny Piedmont flower was that it was hidden. I knew that it, like Camp Mary Elizabeth, flourished only as long as it did not push up into the light. For 50 years, some stroke of fate and stewardship had kept that place a sanctuary, while the world had grown up ugly and busy around it.

It took me a few days after my visit to Mary Elizabeth to figure out just what I should do. I knew that if the Mary Elizabeth woods were to be saved from development, it would take hard work, long hours, and diligence. It would take changing a community’s focus, maybe even its values. It would take us all slowing down, leaning over, looking below, seeing hidden things, important things that pass quickly without notice. And yes, unfortunately, it would probably take money, since the Girl Scouts seemed, at that time, bent on building their “dream camp.”

I sat down at my keyboard and described my visit with the botanist, my encounter with the rare plant, and my hopes for restoration. Soon I had a 4,500-word personal narrative, “Something Rare as the Dwarf-flowered Heartleaf.” But what to do with it? One morning I read the piece to my friends at the coffeehouse. They convinced me that the essay needed to circulate within the community. No one could remember such a direct appeal for conservation values in our community before. I knew I had to publish it, but where? Somewhere that Spartanburg’s rich and powerful – the ones I imagined could help save the camp – would see it.

One friend had the idea of mailing the piece out directly. Why not design it as a pamphlet with illustrations and a colorful, attractive cover, slip it into an envelope, and post it to 100 important people in Spartanburg? I liked the idea. I enlisted the help of Mark Olencki, a local graphic artist, to design the pamphlet. We soon discovered an elegant drawing of the dwarf-flowered heartleaf in a state booklet on rare and endangered plants and contacted the artist for permission to reprint. She granted it, and the next day we began production of the pamphlet.

“Who are you going to say is sending out the pamphlet?” one friend asked.

“The Friends of the Mary Elizabeth Woods,’” I smiled.

“And who are the Friends of the Mary Elizabeth Woods?” she said.

“All of us who have stirred this up, I guess,” I laughed.

Mark liked the idea and designed a logo that went on one corner of the pamphlet’s back cover. The publication’s first run was 100 copies, printed on Mark’s laser printer, folded, stapled, and signed. On Friday morning I sat down at my kitchen table with a mailing list and $52 worth of stamps. That afternoon I dropped the 100 envelopes in the mail. From first draft to finished pamphlet, the essay was out the door in a week.

I think the pamphlet took everyone who received it by surprise – city council members, the mayor, prominent lawyers, doctors, board members of every important civic foundation, college presidents, and school board members. One of the unwritten rules of community is “You can say anything you want to anyone, but never, never write anything down.” Yet here was an honest, passionate description of a local place, a place under discussion by the entire community. They had all heard about Mary Elizabeth but few of them had walked there. My essay took them into the camp and showed it to them. “It’s real,” the essay said. “Not simply real estate.”

Within a few days the response was heartening. One city council member called me from her car phone; an attorney called to say he would help in any way possible; a doctor offered the name of a friend who fundraises for environmental causes. Of the 100 people who received copies of the pamphlet a quarter of them contacted me directly. All said they supported the cause and wanted the camp saved from development. Many asked what they could do to assure its survival. One night soon after the mailing I found myself having dinner with a local attorney at a college function. I didn’t know him or recognize his name from the list, but as he extended his hand he said, “Oh, John Lane, the Tom Paine of the environment.”

Soon the demand for copies of the pamphlet was more than I could cover with my own little folding, stapling, and stuffing operation, so we arranged a true group of the newly formed Friends of the Mary Elizabeth Woods to assemble several hundred copies at a friend’s house over pizza. In the weeks to follow, dozens were handed out at civic meetings and board meetings.

Running parallel to and sometimes intersecting with the mailing was an organized effort by the Girl Scouts to change leadership from within. From the beginning of the crisis a grass-roots effort had emerged to assure the survival of Camp Mary Elizabeth. and at the Girl Scouts’ April 17 meeting the entire status-quo slate of board members was defeated and replaced with a new board and board chairman. The new attitude was pro-Mary Elizabeth, pro-green space, and, of course, pro-Girl Scouts. In late April, Karen Mitchell, trusted community leader, long time supporter of the local Girl Scouts, and newly elected board chairman, went on record with the local paper to say, “If the Girl Scouts can’t for some reason keep it and use it as a camp, a conservation easement is a possibility. I have spoken with enough people to know that the community wants it saved as a green space.”

Is Camp Mary Elizabeth now safe from urban sprawl and the over- and under-the-table dealers who see development as a community’s most valuable use of land? Not yet, but what will happen to the camp no longer troubles my sleep. Through the summer things have seemed calm. Many of us were relieved when the executive director responsible for the strife over Camp Mary Elizabeth finally resigned in early summer. I trust the current board of the Girl Scouts has the best interest of Spartanburg and the Girl Scouts in mind.

I have been told that this summer the Girl Scouts returned and walked the trails. Next March, when the dwarf-flowered heartleaf blooms in the leaf clutter, I’ll return to look for it and remember how close I believe we as a community came to losing one of the largest tracts of undeveloped land in the city. My mailing did not save Camp Mary Elizabeth. The small Piedmont plant did not save the camp either. What saved it as a community’s collective insight that open space has a value beyond economics, that trees are simply not place holders for development.

John Lane is a poet, essayist, and editor of a South Carolina environmental newsletter, “The Kudzu Telegraph,” as well as the anthology “The Woods Stretched for Miles: New Southern Nature Writing,” recently and from The University of Georgia press.