The Kentucky Division of Forestry and the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources have jointly acquired nearly 2,500 acres at the confluence of the Ohio and Tradewater Rivers. The property is the state’s newest Wildlife Management Area and State Forest. The site near Sturgis is a portion of one of the largest private landholdings in Kentucky; known locally as the Alcoa Property, or more recently as the Kimball Property.
“It’s the gem on the Ohio River,” state Senator Dorsey Ridley said of the expansive area. “It’s a historic area. Lewis and Clark camped at the mouth of the Tradewater on their trip to the Pacific Ocean in the early 1800s.”
Big Rivers WMA and State Forest provides public recreational opportunities for hunting, fishing, hiking, canoeing, and wildlife viewing. The property will also be managed to provide watershed and water quality
protection; protection and recovery of endangered, threatened and rare species; preservation of existing cultural and geological treasures and a sustainable forest. It will be permanently protected from development and agricultural conversion.
This area is described as having steep to very steep upland hardwood forests, flat to rolling bottomland 
hardwood forest, and agricultural lands bordered by the Ohio River to the west and the Tradewater River to the south. The online map of the site depicts the trails; however, notation of the distances is lacking. Upon hiking the area and studying the map, I would estimate four to five miles of trails. Many of these trails are more like access roads for those managing the property and one trail appears to be an old abandoned railroad bed.
