Frank and Julia Buhl have provided the Shenango Valley with gifts that few communities are fortunate enough to enjoy.
From Buhl Farm park to the only free golf course in the world to F.H. Buhl Club, the legacy of the Buhls is one of philanthropy, sparked by love of the community and its people.
In fact, the annual Buhl Day is right around the corner on Labor Day when we celebrate the lives of the Buhls and that legacy. Parades, music, great food and games will highlight the special day. A few local people will be honored for their contributions to the area.
Maybe an added feature this year will be a tour of the “Buhl Dump.”
It was very disconcerting to read a recent story in The Herald that part of Buhl Farm was being used as a dump.
Obviously, the park employees were using a former part of the golf course — affectionately known as Dum Dum — to throw away unwanted materials.
The woodlands there were littered with garbage, garbage bags, a broken plastic slide, rusting signs and posts and construction debris.
A couple of years ago the Buhl Trustees conducted a massive fund-raising campaign to provide for improvements at the park. Certainly people didn’t donate so the park could build a private dump on the property.
If a normal citizen had that kind of trash on their property, he or she would be cited for code violations.
The trustees brought in an environmentalist to give advice on how to better provide habitat for the many animals that roam its woods, lawns and fields. That’s why there is high, uncut grass between some of the groves of trees around the park. Rabbits and other animals live there.
But we highly doubt that building a dump was one of the recommendations to help wildlife — unless that wildlife is rats. In fact, we would think this would be extremely detrimental to the environment. Parts of the park could even be defined as wetlands, which should be protected under federal law.
Obviously, when he made his bequests, Mr. Buhl realized there would be changes. F.H. Buhl Club — which receives no money from the Buhl Trust and exists independently of the park — was founded in 1903. Just this month the name was changed to the Buhl Community Recreation Center.
We are sure that Mr. Buhl would agree with the change which better reflects the family atmosphere of the club he opened to “give my people something to do.”
But one change we’re sure he never foresaw was throwing garbage and trash in the woods of his former farmland.
What was astonishing was that park officials didn’t seem too concerned.
They said there is no timetable for clean-up. They shouldn’t need a timetable. That trash should have been hauled away immediately.
When thousands of people roam through the park on Buhl Day, we would hope that trash is long gone. It is a disgrace to the legacy of the Buhls.
