Park a possibility for Mount Edith

After a successful community fundraiser to “Save Old Baldy,” the city of Wimberley his hoping to replicate the process to save Old Baldy’s sister Mount Edith.

“We are trying to acquire the 288-acre piece of property located in the Wimberley ETJ behind the Wimberley High School, and we are trying to acquire it for parkland,” Richard Shaver, programs and operations manager for the city of Wimberley Parks Department, said. “The cost is around $6.3 million, and we are not going to get that through city funds. We are only looking at grants, donations, partnerships and things of that sort.”

Old Baldy was originally named Mount Alberta. It and Mount Edith are called the Twin Sisters and were named after twin sisters that were early settlers of the Wimberley Valley. Funds were raised in 2015 by the community to purchase Old Baldy, and it was subsequently donated to the city of Wimberley as a park. Now, Mount Edith is up for sale on a much larger tract of land.

“This property is a large piece of land,” Shaver said. “First we would look into acquiring it. Then we would turn to the community ands ask what they would like. We could keep it as natural as possible or transform it into a more conventional park… We have heard some talk about an observatory, which next to the high school would be of great educational benefit. Another draw of the property is it is natural. There is no human footprint I know of on the property so far. Having that real Hill Country native land we could use it to show the public how wildlife naturally occurs.”

Beyond the benefits of additional parkland, Shaver said that making sure the property isn’t developed would have even larger benefits for Wimberley.

“Flood mitigation is really important,” Shaver said. “If this property were to be developed then all of that impervious cover would be detrimental to the Wimberley Valley. This property is up hill from downtown, so if it were developed and we had a 100 year flood or 500 year flood then all of that water would head straight to downtown. If this were to be parkland, we could put into effect a bunch of flood mitigation plans. We were conscious of that during the development of Blue Hole.”

The Wimberley City Council will consider a letter of support for the attempted acquisition of the park during the council meeting on Thursday night. Currently, the Parks Department is asking for letters of support from the community to show the interest in acquiring the land. Letters can be emailed to [email protected]. A website is currently being built to accept donations, but is not yet finished.