Gulf Branch Supporters Rally to Save Nature Center

The nearly 300 local residents who on March 14 rallied to save Gulf Branch Nature Center said they want to find creative ways to keep the center open, rather than simply threaten county officials with recriminations if the 43-year-old facility is shuttered.

“We don’t want to lose this treasure,” said Ron Cheich, president of the Old Glebe Civic Association, at a park rally that was part political activism, part hootenanny featuring beloved local fiddler Speedy Tolliver.

“This is a jewel in the Arlington park system,” Cheich told the assembled crowd. “Once this park is lost, it’s going to be lost forever, and we can’t let that happen.”

County Manager Ron Carlee has proposed shutting down the nature center and transferring many of its functions to nearby Potomac Overlook Regional Park. The shift is expected to save the county government about $130,000 per year.

But the cost to the community would be far greater if the center was closed, supporters say.

“I don’t know what could be built in its place that could be more valuable,” said Sophie Pyle, who grew up using the facility as a child living nearby.

County officials already appear to have backed away with plans to raze the former home that serves as a nature center on the 38-acre site, but Carlee still wants to mothball the building and eliminate staffing.

The decision has left the community “flabbergasted and angry,” said David Duhamel, president of the Gulf Branch Civic Association. And the reaction was swift, evidenced by those who showed up on a gray March day to voice their concern.

“Look at this show of solidarity,” Duhamel said as he looked over the assembled crowd at the protest. He praised “the coming together, everybody coming out of the woodwork.”

Janet Nuzum, who started the group Friends of Gulf Branch and has been a leader in the movement to save the facility, said supporters are willing to step in and provide a larger group of volunteers and fund-raising efforts to augment county funds.

“It has been an amazing three weeks,” she said of the protest movement.

Supporters of the park are expected to descend on the March 24-25 County Board budget hearings. Board members have said that every interest group coming before them with needs they want funded should have suggestions where to cut other parts of the budget to make up for a fiscal shortfall in the tens of millions of dollars.

Gulf Branch is one of two county-operated nature centers in Arlington, and the only one in North Arlington. Prior to becoming a nature center in 1966, it was a private residence. Among its tenants at one time was Pola Negri, who had been among the biggest film stars of the silent era.