The floodplain, wooded hillside and plateau near where Sandy Creek joins the Allegheny River in Venango County has a past that contains historic native American settlements and trading sites stretching back some 9,000 years.

Now, it also has a future.

That's because the Fisherman's Cove Preservation Foundation, after two years of fund raising, has finally completed the purchase of 207 acres of wooded riparian land from the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.

The purchase agreement, completed Dec. 28 and announced yesterday, contains a detailed conservation easement that prohibits subdivision of the tract, or oil or natural gas exploration.

The easement, jointly held by the foundation, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and The Archaeological Conservancy, ensures the preservation of the property where river willows, bullfrogs and bald eagles already have a toehold and archaeological digs have only scratched the surface. The more than 50 acres of river frontage has been intermittently used for thousands of years by the region's indigenous populations, as well as early settlers.

"It's been a long time coming, but this land is now protected environmentally and culturally, which is a new twist for land conservation in Pennsylvania," said Cathy Kentzel, president of the foundation formed in 2004 by residents of a nearby seasonal cottage community to preserve the property known as the "Kerr Tract."

The land, bounded by Sandy Creek and private lands on the west and north and by the Allegheny River on the east, was purchased from the Kerr family by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy between 1973 and 1976 to block possible development.

When the conservancy said it wanted to sell the property, Mrs. Kentzel and her husband, Paul, who live in Ross, and other seasonal residents who recognized the ecological and cultural value of the land, waged a campaign to buy it.

The nonprofit Fisherman's Cove organization raised the $9,000 down payment from cottage owners and purchased the land for $90,000. Closing costs of $3,000 plus attorney's fees pushed the total to more than $100,000, some of it coming from Pittsburgh area foundations and some from an auction of 18 donated antique steamer trunks.

Mrs. Kentzel said it was important to preserve the property because archeological material shows it was a link in Native American trading routes stretching up the Allegheny River to Kinzua and down the Ohio River to the Mississippi River. She said additional archaeological exploration may prove the site worthy of listing on the National Historic Register.

"The settlements may have handled medicinal oils from up river and it may very well have been a significant site," Mrs. Kentzel said. "There are materials from many cultures indicating trade up and down the rivers. This is a property that really needs to be protected and stewarded with a watchful eye."

Dr. Sue Ann Curtis, a Fisherman's Cove Preservation Foundation director and anthropologist who has studied the area for three years, said the property provides an important record of the region's economic, social and political history, and preservation of that record is a key mission of the organization.

The land will be open to the public for recreational and educational uses, such as the informational meetings already conducted by the foundation to show local landowners how to remove invasive plant species including Japanese knotweed, switchgrass, wild grapevine and barberry.

The organization has two years to write a forest management plan.

"We hope to eventually construct a green building on the property that can act as a hub for environmental, cultural and historic programs," Mrs. Kentzel said. "Our goal is to show that communities can make a difference and that this is a special place."