By DAVID BERTOLA
dbertola@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1621

There's rich soil, and then there's the $750,000 coming from 131 acres in Pennsylvania that will benefit Gateway-Longview Inc.

The land, located in Warren Township in Bradford, Pa., was donated by benefactor Lotta Minehan upon her death in 1957. Gateway-Longview President and CEO James Sampson said that, at the time, the gift - a small estate valued at $4,000 - was put into a trust.

Prior to her death, Minehan had established a trust for the children served by the Methodist Home, which eventually became Gateway Youth and Family Services.

"Its income, to be dedicated to the Methodist Home for Children, the predecessor to Gateway-Longview, was kept in a trust. And in the mid-1960s, the organization that held that trust transferred it to the Gateway-Longview Foundation," Sampson said.

In 2009, Red Sky Land LLC completed a title search for 130 aces of land in Bradford City, Pa., because it wanted to explore for natural gas there. When it was learned that mineral rights belonged to Minehan, Gateway-Longview became the sole beneficiary of proceeds from the land.

"It was the mineral rights to the land that Minehan owned, although her ownership was not discovered until a title search was done, that went to the trust," he said.

Its value increased when natural gas drillers offered to pay 20 percent royalties for any gas well developed there, since it's part of the Marcellus Shale resources development project.

Regarding royalties, Sampson said it has yet to be determined how that will be structured, should gas be found there and extracted. If so, he said, "there will be a stream of income for Gateway-Longview."

The $250,000 was to be paid to Gateway-Longview sometime around Jan. 1. The remaining $500,000 balance will go into the trust originally created by Minehan. Income from that will go to the services organization, which has been providing care, counseling and support to children and families since 1890.

"At this point, we do not know what the income will be on a yearly basis, but distributions are typically set by state and federal law and dependent on investment income and growth," Sampson said.

The money will be used for program support at Gateway-Longview. Minehan's ties to it revolve around the Methodist Home, which dates to 1930. The Methodist Home building is now known as the Knox administration building at Gateway-Longview's location on Main Street in Williamsville.

"We know she lived in Bradford City in Pennsylvania and is originally from Oswego, N.Y. And we believe that she was a Methodist and active in the Methodist Church throughout her life," Sampson said.