Preston's Vision
Frank Preston's touch echoes throughout the parks he preserved for Butler County residents to use today and tomorrow.
A Butler transplant, Frank Preston and his wife, Jane, were instrumental conservationists in Butler County whose work contributed to the creation of Moraine State Park, Jennings Environmental Education Center and Preston Park, as well as others outside the county.
“They were very much a partnership,” said Polly Shaw, a local author who has written about Moraine State Park and the Prestons. “They shared a vision for themselves and the land, and they were the best people for each other.”Frank Preston was born May 14, 1896, in Leicester, England. A civil engineer by trade, Preston first traveled to the United States in 1920, as requested by his employer. The stint had Preston working with George Eastman of Eastman Kodak in Rochester, N.Y. It was during this time that he accompanied friends to the Butler County area and became acquainted with its features.After some back and forth travel between England and the U.S., Preston settled his roots in Butler Township and founded Preston Laboratories, where he researched glass technology,
In 1962, Preston sold his company, which was then renamed to American Glass Research (AGR). The company persists to this day, and it even has a tribute to Preston's impact on its website.“The early existence of Preston Laboratories provided a previously unfulfilled but critical requirement of technical support and research for the glass container industry,” the site said.Preston's expertise in glass is well established and documented through his dozens of patents, but it was his free-time pursuits as a conservationist that left a lasting impression on the county.Even in his earliest experiences in Butler County, Frank Preston found similarities between his hometown Leicester and the Muddy Creek Flats, both morphed by a long-gone ancient glacier.
“Frank Preston was a known genius. Geniuses don't need to announce it. Other people just knew this,” Shaw said.As Preston worked he formed important relationships with other conservationists and organizations, but at the time, everyone had their own thoughts and agendas, according to Shaw.“A genius knows he cannot accomplish these things alone,” she said.In the mid-1940s, Preston formed a friendship with a Pittsburgh conservationist, botanist and fellow intellect, Edmund Watts Arthur. Together the two explored the Muddy Creek Flats, uncovering and mapping the edges of the glacial lake.
By his death in 1948, Arthur had left such a lasting impression on Preston that Moraine State Park's centerpiece lake was named after him.Shaw said for a moment, Preston thought the projects died with Arthur, but then he regained his composure.“I think the death of Arthur then motivated him,” she said.Preston managed to gather all of his contacts, all the organizations and all the influential people who all had different ideas, into a meeting at his home. From this meeting, a seed was planted.
Shortly after the meeting, Preston stepped away from the forefront of the movement, but the seed grew into the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, a conglomeration of all the different people and organizations that Preston brought together.“That was part of his effectiveness of drawing people together,” Shaw said. “No Preston didn't found the WPA, but he was a strong influence in trying to get these people to work together.”
Preston lived to take part in Moraine State Park's dedication in 1970. Frank Preston died March 1, 1989, at age 92, leaving Jane to continue caring for the English garden and well preserved nature they had created around their home and laboratory complex.In the early days of the company, the couple lived in an apartment in Butler. They had opportunities to move out, but eventually the death of their groundskeeper left an open apartment above one of their laboratory buildings.
The couple moved into the apartment, and then, they focused their attention on turning the surrounding land into their own nature paradise.Shaw said Frank Preston had his own reasons. Having his own love for nature, he wanted his employees to have a place where they could come and recreate, and if they did so together while exchanging ideas about work, all the better.With Frank gone, Jane began planning for her own departure and made the decision to give the land around the labs to Butler Township on the grounds that it would be cared for and preserved properly, which included the land never be mined, drilled or timbered for profit.In 2008, Jane Preston died, but she and her husband's legacy lived on in both parks, and more, as they continue to be a key part of life in Butler County.“It's the bigger picture of the land. The land is the most important piece,” Shaw said. “We have a wonderful resource right here that otherwise would not have happened to that degree.”
