The Patoka River winds its way westward across four southern Indiana counties, draining 862 square miles of watershed before joining the Wabash across from Mt. Carmel, Illinois. In this course, it drops about 12 feet per mile for its first 25 miles, but less than 1 foot per mile during its last 42 miles. The upper reaches can be a raging river at times, then spreading across thousands of acres of more gentle floodplains, marshes and wetlands. Overall, the Patoka system is one of the most diversified biological ecosystems in the United States. As more and more of this kind of landscape disappeared to development and other conversions, the remainder became the more precious. And in the mid-1 980s the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Indiana Department of Natural Resources began a plan to restore and protect some 50,000 acres as a National Wildlife Refuge. The Indiana lzaak Walton League was among the first to endorse the proposal; but the path was not smooth, as first a regional organization of objectors began a public relations war against it, and then a quirk in the law held that a National Wildlife Refuge could not be established on properties where mining rights were held. But to deal with the opposition and respond to its reservations, a new local group was formed in 1987, called PRIDE (Patoka Refuge Individuals Defending the Environment). Its president and secretary were Waltonians Chuck Bauer and Jim Daniels. Other major Indiana groups joined the campaign, such as the Hoosier Environmental Council which organized the first broad-interest community meeting to begin resolution of divided opinions. Many such meetings were held over several years; and gradually public opinion became more relaxed, making it possible for then Congressman Frank McCloskey to endorse the project, along with Senators Richard Lugar and Dan Coats, and then-Governor Evan Bayh. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had fully endorsed the project, including boundary adjustments to resolve the mining issue, and identifying such properties as a National Wildlife Management Area, while less encumbered properties available from willing sellers constituted the National Wildlife Refuge. The system was officially established September 7, 1994, and was inaugurated by a donation of a little over nine acres of wetlands by the Indiana Division lzaak Walton League Endowment, which had acquired it earlier in the campaign for just that purpose, in cooperation with the PRIDE organization.

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