Helen Roth: Amazing Florida Land Steward
By Arlo H. Kane, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Welcome to Spring Canyon LLC in Gadsden County, a 100-acre property owned by Helen and Tom Roth. This beautiful property is home to steephead ravines and longleaf pine-wire grass sandhills. Helen has traced the history of the property through property records and aerial photographs back to 1926 near the end of the turpentine era. In 1960, the land was donated to the First Baptist Church of Greensboro. The church put in a dam on Crooked Creek to create a small lake in the center of the property. Fire was excluded from the uplands during their ownership. Helen’s brother, Mark Bane, bought the property in 1993 and began working with the Forest Stewardship Program in 1994. He harvested the hardwoods from two of the three upland areas and applied prescribed fire to one of the areas be- fore he passed away in 2005 and the property passed to Mark and Helen’s father. Helen Roth, owner and manager of Spring Canyon In 200...