News & Updates

Devotee gives $2.7M to Baxter park
By Kevin Miller
August 24, 2007 - Bangor Daily News

AUGUSTA - A Rockport man and longtime Baxter State Park volunteer has donated about $2.7 million to create an endowment to help manage and protect the 209,500-acre wilderness park, state officials announced Thursday.

Gov. John Baldacci said Frank Trautmann’s initial gift would be placed in a new trust called the Baxter Park Wilderness Fund. Proceeds from the endowment will be used at the discretion of the three-member board that oversees Baxter. However, Trautmann has indicated he would like to see the money used to help keep user fees low and to pay for park upkeep.

Trautmann, who is 86, also has pledged a gift from his estate. That could bring the value of the newly established trust fund up to $10 million, not including any subsequent donations from others, state officials said.

"Today, with one important gift, we will extend and secure the promise of Baxter State Park," Baldacci said during a press conference held in his Cabinet room.

Trautmann’s gift comes less than one year after the completion of another historic project at Baxter: the annexation of roughly 4,000 acres surrounding Katahdin Lake, which the late Gov. Percival Baxter had always hoped to include in the park he single-handedly created.

In fact, Trautmann played a major financial role in that project as well.

In the final days of a frenzied push to complete the Katahdin Lake deal, Trautmann donated his 58-acre property on Islesboro to The Trust for Public Land, the nonprofit organization leading the fundraising campaign. As part of the plan, the TPL then sold the property to a prearranged buyer for more than $6 million.

Under the terms of Trautmann’s agreement with TPL, the $6 million would help complete the $14 million campaign for Katahdin Lake. Any leftover money — now estimated at $2.7 million — would go into this new trust, according to Trautmann’s attorney, Willard "Skip" Pease.

A former manager of manufacturing industries in southern New England, Trautmann apparently was recovering from recent surgery and could not be present for Thursday’s ceremony.

But several people who knew the man and his late wife, Margery, described the couple as park devotees who firmly believed in the vision of Baxter State Park’s namesake.

Former longtime park director Irvin "Buzz" Caverly said Frank Trautmann has been an avid volunteer for nearly two decades, doing everything from trail maintenance to creating signs and shingling roofs.

When the park lacked the money to build new lean-tos, Trautmann cut down trees on his land, had them milled and carted them to the park. He then helped build the structures, staying at the campsite until they were complete.

Caverly said the Trautmanns began talking to him about creating a trust fund five years ago. Frank Trautmann subscribes so enthusiastically to Percival Baxter’s vision for his park that he was hesitant to even allow the state to announce him as the donor of the $2.7 million.

"I think his wish is to help the park … and not to diminish in any way from the original gift of Percival P. Baxter," Caverly said.

Caverly, Pease and Jim Garland were appointed by Baldacci to manage the Baxter Park Wilderness Fund to maximize its value. Because Trautmann is donating the money with no stipulations attached, the three-member Baxter State Park Authority will decide how to use the funds.

Both Baldacci and Pease said it is not expected that the money will be used to expand Baxter.

The new endowment will complement the original trust fund left by Percival Baxter, which now is valued at about $62 million. Park director Jensen Bissell said officials are careful to spend only a portion of the earned interest from that original endowment to allow the fund to continue to grow.

The other source of funding for maintenance, staff salaries and other activities at the park comes from user fees. Bissell called Trautmann a true "gentleman," adding that he has spent time both on the trail and camping with the man.

"The park is truly very grateful for his generosity," Bissell said.

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