New campground opens in York Township

By BECKY BROOKS

Man­ag­ing Editor

news@gazettepublishingco.com

Buck­eye Acres Camp­ground recently opened on TR 278 in York Township.

After a year in the plan­ning, Mark and Betsy Hack­en­burg have qui­etly opened Buck­eye Acres Camp­ground LLC at 972 TR 278 in York Town­ship – between Port­land Road (CR 175) and SR 101.

The Hack­en­burgs started the project last August with a design phase, but con­struc­tion on Buck­eye Acres did not begin until crops came off the field in November.

So where there were crops in 2011 there is now an crushed asphalt drive lead­ing back off TR 278 to 22 acres with 530 pine and hard­wood trees recently planted, a fish­ing and swim­ming pond built in and a spa­cious children’s playground.

Betsy said the goal is to develop a year round camp­ground facil­ity with 90 sites for the whole family.

Each RV site has a water hookup as well as both 30 and 50 AMP power ser­vice, accord­ing to her hus­band Mark. The indi­vid­ual camp sites are well above state-required min­i­mums and aver­age 50 by 80 feet, he said. The grounds already has a nature trail, pad­dle boats for the pond and a tour­na­ment qual­ity horse­shoe court.

“We’re upgraded more than any camp­ground in the area,” he pointed out about amenities.

While the camp­ground has not offi­cially held its grand open­ing, Buck­eye Acres has its per­mits in place and this past week­end campers started mov­ing in to secure their year round spots in the park.

The local cou­ple said they have peo­ple want­ing to secure mul­ti­ple camp­sites together and they are mak­ing the trip to the fledg­ling park to get choice loca­tions before the grounds fills up later this summer.

Betsy said the sea­son is start­ing late for Buck­eye Acres, which is named for a giant Buck­eye tree which stood on the Hack­en­burg farm for many years. While a storm took down the tree, Mark said more Buck­eye trees have been planted in the park.

The sea­son in 2012 will end in Novem­ber for the camp­grounds, but in the future the Hack­en­burgs are plan­ning for year round camp­ing and events for campers with arc­tic pack­ages, accord­ing to Betsy.

For those seek­ing short-term camp­ing, two-day rates begin at $70 and weekly rates at $185.

Although campers are already mov­ing in, the Hack­en­burgs have many more addi­tions in the wings this sum­mer – three new cab­ins, rental campers, pic­nic shel­ters, corn hole, and secu­rity fencing.

The largest addi­tion will be a new restau­rant, which will adja­cent to the ground’s shower facility.

The footer for the new restau­rant is in place, and Buck­eye Fire and Grill LLC – a pub­lic restau­rant – should be opened on the grounds in com­ing months.

Betsy said the fam­ily already is plan­ning activ­i­ties for Christ­mas in July, Hal­loween and win­ter events.

Her hus­band said he has retired and this camp­grounds is a fam­ily dream – with his son, Kole doing a lot of the work to get the park in place and younger chil­dren participating.

“We have come a long way from being farm­land,” Mark added about Buck­eye Acres.

For more infor­ma­tion on the camp­grounds call 419–765-0048 or visit its Face­book page – Buck­eye Acres Campground.

Posted by Becky Brooks on Jul 3 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.