ORLAND – After 10 years of negotiations, the Great Pond Mountain Conservation Trust has completed the purchase of 4,200 acres of undeveloped land around the mountain.

The trust closed on the $2.4 million purchase last month, completing what officials believe to be the largest single land acquisition by a local land trust in Maine. The trust purchased the two parcels, now known as the Great Pond Mountain Wildlands, from Dale Henderson Logging Inc. and Oakleaf Realty.

Although the two parcels do not include the peak of Great Pond Mountain, they do contain a large portion of the surrounding countryside, according to Holly Taylor-Lash, the trust’s president.

“This group has been trying to promote Great Pond Mountain and encourage people to climb the mountain and look at the vista,” Taylor-Lash said Monday. “This is a huge section of the landscape that you see from the top. If that had been developed into house lots, it would take away from that experience.”

This is the first land purchase for the trust, which was founded in 1993. The trust also holds conservation easements on privately owned farmland, forest, islands and hilltops in Orland and Lucerne.

The trust was able to acquire the property for about $500 per acre, according to Taylor-Lash. That is the result of a charitable donation to the trust from Dale Henderson, the owner of Henderson Logging, who sold the property for significantly less than its appraised value.

“It’s a very special place,” Henderson said in a prepared released from the trust. “I’ve worked the last 10 years to sell it to the trust and not to develop it if there was any way possible. It’s good to have land available for the future, that anyone can come to.”

The trust had hoped to complete the purchase before any logging had been done on the parcels, but was unable to do so, Taylor-Lash said. But the important thing, she said, was that the group was able to preserve the land.

“The trees will grow back,” she said. “What’s important is that we can preserve the land for the future of our children.”

The area is near Bangor and Ellsworth, she said, and will likely attract people from both those population centers and beyond.

“We’re going to need a sizable expanse of property for such a large population to go and lose themselves in,” she said.

It was the size of the property that made the property so valuable and convince trust officials that it needed to be preserved, according to Taylor-Lash.

“It’s such a huge piece,” she said. “It’s large enough to remain a viable habitat for moose, deer, bobcat and bear to roam and could support a multitude of recreational opportunities for the future. It is a very special place and is well-known in the community.”

The two parcels include frontage on Route 1 and contain about 10 percent of the Alamoosook Lake watershed, as well as the entire three-mile Hothole Brook, frontage on Hothole Pond and the eastern shore of the Dead River, a part of Alamoosook Lake. Protecting the area from development will benefit the Craig Brook National Fish Hatchery, according to Carl Burger, the complex manager at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s facility. The hatchery depends on clean water from Alamoosook Lake to raise the endangered Atlantic salmon for restocking programs in Maine.

“Keeping the land free from development will help ensure a critical water source for our fishery programs,” Burger said in the prepared release. The trust paid an initial $1.5 million for the parcel and borrowed the other $1 million. It now has two years to raise the remaining $1 million and an additional $400,000 for a stewardship fund for the property.

The initial payment was raised mainly from donations from local families and the trust’s board members, and the group hopes to involve the entire local community in fund-raising efforts as well as in planning for uses of the property. Taylor-Lash encouraged residents to support a Land For Maine’s Future bond issue if it goes to a statewide vote in November, hoping that the project could qualify to receive some of those funds.

The land includes about 14 miles of roads that remain from previous logging operations, and some of those roads will likely be maintained in the future. The trust, however, has not established any definite plans for the land and hopes to involve existing community groups and individuals in the planning process.

“We really want to work together with the community and involve as many people as possible,” Taylor-Lash said. “We want it to be a total community effort.”

She conceded that it will be a challenge to balance the many diverse interests and opinions regarding the uses of the property and that some management decisions will likely be linked to restrictions placed on donations to the trust for the property.

The trust has no particular fundraising projects on tap, but will have information booths at the Fort Knox Bay Festival this weekend and the Common Ground Fair later this year.