history of forestry 1890-1900
1890-1900
1890
In less than a week, Congress passes legislation, (President Benjamin Harrison signs), establishing
Sequoia National Park,
Yosemite National Park (September 3d)
General Grant National Parks, California
As part of a campaign to make Yosemite a national park, John Muir publishes two landmark articles on wilderness preservation in Century magazine, "The Treasures of the Yosemite" and "Features of the Proposed Yosemite National Park."
July 2, Sherman Antitrust Act. Provided for regulation of Trusts.
First Logging Railroad built in Montana near Elliston by EF Cameron and Company. 6.5 miles of standard gauge (56 ½”) track was laid.
From 1890 until 1956, 29 Shay and 1 Willamette geared Railroad Logging Locomotives operate in Montana
Between 1890 and 1900, 10 square mile or 6400 acres per day of Forested land is cleared for conversion to farmland.
1891
March 3, Forest Reserve Act. Creative Act. General Revision Act.
"An act to repeal timber-culture laws, and for other purposes", repealing the Timber Culture Act of 1873,
4Section 24 empowered the president to set aside forest reserves from public lands covered with timber, by withdrawing land from the public domain; this creates the legislative foundation for what becomes the Forest Reserves.
March 30, President Benjamin Harrison issues a Presidential Proclamation setting aside 1,239,040 acres in Wyoming called Yellowstone Timber Reserve as the nation's first Forest Reserve, the first in what eventually becomes the National Forest system. May 22, 1902, name changed to Yellowstone, some acres are added or eliminated. January 29, 1903, Absaroka and Teton added. July 1, 1908, Lands divided among Targhee, Teton, Wyoming, Bonneville, Absaroka, Shoshone and Beartooth: name discontinued.
Between 1891 and 1907, 133 million acres of Forest Reserves are created.
November 14, Big Blackfoot Mining and Manufacturing changes its name to Big Blackfoot Milling Company.
1892
In San Francisco, John Muir and a group of associates meet to found the Sierra Club, which is modeled on the Appalachian Mountain Club and explicitly dedicated to the preservation of wilderness.
President Benjamin Harrison issues a Proclamation setting aside a tract of land in Alaska as a forest and fish culture reservation (known as the Afognak Forest and Fish-Culture Reserve), thus creating what is in effect, if not in name, the first national wildlife refuge.
President Harrison proclaimed eight more Timberland Reserves:
Pikes Peak, South Platte and Battlement Mesa in Colorado
June 23, Plum Creek Timber Land Forest Reserve established in Colorado with 179,200 acres. May 12, 1905 consolidated with Pikes Peak; name discontinued.
Pecos River, New Mexico
Bull Run in Oregon
San Gabriel in California and
Afognak in Alaska.
By late 1892, President Harrison had created 15 reserves containing 13 million acres.
Gifford Pinchot begins a three-year stint as one of the first professional American forester, on the Biltmore Estate of George W. Vanderbilt near Asheville, North Carolina.
1894
May 7, Congress passes:
"An Act To protect the birds and animals in Yellowstone National Park," known as the National Park Protective Act, which establishes the principle that national parks exist in part to protect wildlife and are not to be used for hunting.
413 people die in a wildfire in Hinckley, Minnesota.
August 18, Carey Act. Sundry Civil Appropriations Act. Authorized the president to grant to each state not more that 1 million acres of public lands to be sold in support of irrigation and settlement.
Heisler Locomotive Works begins building geared locomotives. 1600 were made until 1945.
1896
The American Academy of Sciences establishes a committee on forests, chaired by Charles Sprague Sargent, with Gifford Pinchot as its youngest member, which takes a census of the nation's forests and calls for their active management.
Gifford Pinchot and Henry Graves publish The White Pine, presumably America’s first scientific report on the silviculture and management of an important tree species.
1897
June 4, Forest Management Act. Sundry Civil Appropriations Act. Organic Act. Forest Lieu Act. Pettigrew Act. Making explicit the purpose of Forest Reserves as resources for lumbering, mining, and grazing and providing the blueprint for their management until the 1960s; this act also places Federal Forest administration under the jurisdiction of the General Land Office, Department of the Interior (aka Special Service Division, Division P).
4Also allocated funds for surveying the boundary line between Idaho and Montana.
The act of June 4, 1897, instructs the Secretary in charge of forest reserves to make provisions for their protection against fire, and provides for the punishment of any violation of his regulations.
John Muir publishes two articles in the Atlantic Monthly, "The American Forests" (1897) and "The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West," (1998) which reveal the shift in his thought from compromise to absolute opposition on the question of "use" of protected resources.
February 22, Grover Cleveland in his last month (10 days left) in office, added 21,279,840 acres to the Forest Reserve System without prior consultation with those who would be directly affected or their representatives in Congress. These reserves are nicknamed Washington’s Birthday Reserves. This doubled the size of the Forest Reserve system at that time.
February 22, (effective March 1 1898) Bitter Root Forest Reserve established, 4,147,200 acres. July 1, 1908, name changed to Bitterroot, lands added from Big Hole and Hellgate, lands transferred to Beaverhead, Clearwater, Nezperce and Salmon. October 29, 1934, part of Selway added.
February 22, (effective March 1 1898) Flathead Forest Reserve established with 1,382,400 acres. June 9, 1903, consolidated with Lewis and Clarke; name discontinued. July 1, 1908 reestablished from part of Lewis and Clark. June 22, 1935, part of Blackfeet added.
February 22, (effective March 1 1898) Lewis and Clarke Forest Reserve established with 2,926,000 acres. June 3, 1903, Flathead added. March 2, 1907, spelling changed to Lewis and Clark. April 8, 1932 entire Jefferson added. July 1, 1945, part of Absaroka added.
Others created on February 22:
Bighorn, 1,198,080 acres
Blackhills, 967,680
Mount Rainier, 2,926,000
Olympic, 2,188,800
Priest River, 645,120
San Jacinto, 740,000
Stanislaus, 691,200
Teton, 829,440
Uintah, 875,520
Washington, 3,594,240
1898
July 1, at the invitation of Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson, Gifford Pinchot is appointed Chief of the Division of Forestry in the Department of Agriculture.
4Begins crusade to convert the public and forest industry to support for scientific forest management. 4He has a staff of 6 clerical and 6 for scientific work.
4Within 7 years, that number will increase to 700.
July 1, Sundry Civil Appropriations Act. First appropriation ($75,000) for protection and administration of forest reserves.
Pinchot writes Circular 21, Practical Assistance to Farmers, Lumberman, and Owners of Forest Lands, which offered technical advice to lumber companies and promoting forest health.
New York College of Forestry was established at Cornell University, the first undergraduate forestry school of collegiate rank in the US. (The college is dissolved in 1903)
Dr. Carl A. Schenck opens the Biltmore Forest School, a private academy to provide training in Forestry practices. Winter classes were held at the Biltmore Estate near Asheville North Carolina and summer sessions in Pisgah Forest. The Biltmore Forest School graduated its last class in 1913.
1899
Frank M. Chapman founds Bird-Lore magazine as the organ of the nation's Audubon Societies; it becomes the leading popular journal of ornithology and nature study of this era, and exerts incalculable influence on the growth of conservation knowledge and popular support; today it continues under its later name, Audubon.
Congress passes a bill establishing Mount Rainier National Park, Washington, 239,892 acres.
March 3, Rivers and Harbors Act. Refuse Act. Forbade discharge or deposit of refuse into waterways that would be hazardous to navigation. [Not for pollution control, but for navigation]
March 3, That hereafter all standard, meander, township, and section lines of the public land surveys shall, as hereto fore, be established under the direction and supervision of the Commissioner of the General Land Office.
February, Marcus Daly acquires about 3,000,000 acres of timberlands in Northern Pacific land grants for the Big Blackfoot Milling Company.
Pinchot writes Circular 22 Practical Assistance to Tree Planters, explaining a tree-planting program.
He also published Primer of Forestry, Part 1. Part 2 was published 5 years later, a total of 1,300,000 were eventually printed of the two part publication.
Pinchot wrote in a memo:
4” Fieldwork, not office reports, should be given priority.”
4 “Office personnel should “interfere” as little as possible with the important work of the agency…every effort should be made to create an esprit de corps (pride in ones work and loyalty to the agency).”
4 “Good work should be followed by promotion, and the men in the field should know that the department stood behind them.”
4 “Get the Harvard rubbed off the students before they came in contact with the loggers.”
February 10, Gallatin Forest Reserve established in Bozeman, Montana with 40,320 acres. July 1, 1908, part of Big Belt added. December 16, 1931, part of Madison added. July 1, 1945 part of Absaroka added.
Daniel Best patents his steam harvester.
1900
Government Timber Sale Number One, aka, Case Study Number One, Black Hills Forest Reserve, South Dakota under the administration of the General Land Office was the first federal timber sale. (May be 1898, not 1900) . It sold to Homestake Mining Company for $1.00/MBF. The forestry was a eight” plus diameter limit, the brush had to be piles and tops cut into cordwood.
May 25, Lacey Game and Wild Birds Preservation and Disposition Act. Congress passes the first comprehensive Federal legislation designed to protect wildlife.
4The Lacey Act, so called in recognition of its chief sponsor, Rep. John F. Lacey, which outlaws the interstate shipment of any wild animals or birds killed in violation of state laws. Prohibited importation of any animal or bird injurious to agriculture or horticulture.
On November 30, at Pinchot’s invitation a small group consisting of Henry S. Graves, Overton W. Price, Edward T. Allen, William L. Hall, Ralph S. Hosmer, Thomas H. Sherrard and Pinchot formed the Society of American Foresters. The purpose of the Society was “ to further the cause of Forestry in America by fostering a spirit of comradeship among foresters; by creating opportunities for a free interchange of views upon Forestry and allied subjects; and by disseminating a knowledge of the purpose and achievements of Forestry.” On December 13, 1900, they met again and adopted a constitution and a name, the Society of American Foresters, and admitted eight additional men to membership. Thus modestly, even obscurely, the SAF began its existence with an active membership of 15. It was soon nicknamed “The baked Apple Club.” for the gingerbread and baked apples that Pinchot served at subsequent meetings at his home.
Western Lumber builds a sawmill at the mouth of Petty Creek, across from Alberton.
January 3, The Weyerhaeuser Group purchases 900,000 acres of land from the Northern Pacific for $5,400,000 or $6/acre.
September 27, Yale University starts a forestry school, partially funded by an endowment of $150,000, later raised to #300,000 from Gifford Pinchot and his family. The first professors were Henry S. Graves and James W. Toumey. From 1905 through 1940, without a break, the heads of the Forest Service were either founders or graduates of the Yale Forestry School.
Act of May 5, Section 1:
4Any person who shall willfully or maliciously set on fire any timber, underbrush, or grass…shall be fined in a sum not more than $5000 or be imprisoned for a term of not more than 2 years, or both.
(Leaving fire unextinguished on the public domain.) Section 2:
4Any person who shall build a fire in or near any forest, timber, or other inflammable material upon the public domain shall, before leaving said fire, totally extinguish the same.
4Any person failing to do so shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction…shall be fined not more than $1000, or be imprisoned for not more than 1 year, or both.
(Disposal of tops, brush, and other refuse.) Section 3:
4Fines collected shall be paid into the public school fund of the county in which the lands where the offense was committed are situated.
Section 9:
4Persons felling or removing timber under the provisions of this act must utilize all of each tree cut that can be profitably used, and must dispose of the tops, brush, and other refuse in such manner as to prevent the spread of forest fires."
Total consumption of roundwood equivalent in 1900 is 6 times that of 1980, although the population of the country had tripled from 75.9 to 226.5 million people.
1890s
In a time of growing awareness of the potential benefits of scientific forestry, the forestry movement shifts its emphasis from saving trees to promoting scientific forest management. Photographer A.P. Hill uses his photographs of the California redwoods to publicize them as part of campaign to prevent their destruction. 1890 In less than a week, Congress passes legislation establishing Sequoia National Park, California (in a bill enacted September 25), and Yosemite and General Grant National Parks, California (in a bill enacted October 1). In a letter published in the March 5 edition of Garden and Forest, Boston-based landscape architect Charles Eliot makes the innovative proposal that a private association be created for the purpose of protecting and preserving regional scenic treasures through permanent trusteeship: "As Boston's lovers of art united to found the Art Museum, so her lovers of nature should now rally to preserve for themselves and all the people as many as possible of the scenes of natural beauty which, by great good fortune, still exist near their doors." At the behest of editor Robert Underwood Johnson, and as part of their campaign to make Yosemite a national park, John Muir publishes two landmark articles on wilderness preservation in Century magazine, "The Treasures of the
Yosemite" and "Features of the Proposed Yosemite National Park."
1891
Congress passes "An act to repeal timber-culture laws, and for other purposes", known as the Forest Reserve Act, repealing the Timber Culture Act
of 1873 and empowering the President to create "forest reserves" (later known as national forests) by withdrawing land from the public domain; this creates the legislative foundation for what became the National Forest system. President Benjamin Harrison issues a Presidential Proclamation setting aside a tract of land in Wyoming as the nation's first forest reservation, the first unit in what eventually becomes the National Forest system.
The effort to establish a privately-funded tax-exempt association to protect Massachusetts's natural and historical treasures, spearheaded by Charles Eliot, culminates in the incorporation of the Trustees of Public Reservations by act of the Massachusetts legislature; this organization is the nation's first land trust, and the immediate inspiration for Great Britain's National Trust. First International Irrigation Congress meets in Salt Lake City, promoting the cause of large-scale irrigation in the West.
1891-1902
Charles Sprague Sargent publishes his fourteen-volume The Silva of North America; A Description of the Trees Which Grow Naturally in North America Exclusive of Mexico, the seminal work of American dendrology.
1892
In San Francisco, John Muir and a group of associates meet to found the Sierra Club, which is modelled on the Appalachian Mountain Club and explicitly dedicated to the preservation of wilderness. New York State creates the Adirondack Park, including both portions of the Adirondack Forest Preserve and private holdings, explicitly recognizing the region's value as wilderness. President Benjamin Harrison issues a Proclamation setting aside a tract of land in Alaska as a forest and fish culture reservation (known as the Afognak Forest and Fish-Culture Reserve), thus creating what is in effect, if not in name, the first national wildlife refuge. Lafayette Houghton Bunnell publishes the third and final edition of his memoir Discovery of the Yosemite, and the Indian War of 1851, Which Led to That Event, first published in 1880; it offers readers a striking account of the powerful impact of Yosemite's grandeur on one of its earliest white visitors, while also pointing to the intimate and complicated connection between the roots of preservationist sentiment and the course of violent conquest.
1893
Historian Frederick Jackson Turner publishes an essay entitled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," claiming that American
character and democracy have been decisively and positively shaped by the continuous experience of the frontier, which has now--according to the 1
census--finally disappeared beneath the last waves of settlement.
1894
Congress passes "An Act To protect the birds and animals in Yellowstone National Park," known as the National Park Protective Act, which establishes
the principle that national parks exist in part to protect wildlife and are not to be used for hunting. Revision of the New York State Constitution strengthens protection of the Adirondack Forest Preserve by declaring that these lands "shall not be leased, sold or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, public or private, nor shall the timber thereon be sold, removed, or destroyed;" this provision marks a triumph of the preservationist aspect of conservationism. Bird Day first observed, on May 4, on the model of Arbor Day and at the initiative of Charles Almanzo Babcock, Superintendent of Schools in Oil City, Pennsylvania. By 1910, Bird Day is observed widely, often in conjunction with Arbor Day; together, Bird Day and Arbor Day provide an important opportunity for formal conservation training and reflection in the nation's schools. John Muir publishes his first book, The Mountains of California; it eventually sells some ten thousand copies.
1896
In an appropriations bill for the Department of Agriculture, Congress establishes the Division of Biological Survey within the Department; it
succeeds the Division of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy, and is renamed the Bureau of Biological Survey in 1905. The Massachusetts Audubon Society is founded at the instigation of Boston society matron Harriet Lawrence Hemenway, launching the permanent Audubon movement in the United States and providing a grass-roots model outlet for activity by the increasing numbers of Americans concerned with birds and bird
protection; by the end of the following year, there are Audubon Societies in ten states and the District of Columbia. The American Academy of Sciences establishes a committee on forests, chaired by Charles Sprague Sargent, with Gifford Pinchot as its youngest member, which takes a census of the nation's forests and calls for their active management.
1897
As part of an appropriations bill, Congress passes what is known as the Forest Management Act, or Organic Act, making explicit the purpose of Forest Reserves (later National Forests) as resources for lumbering, mining, and grazing and providing the blueprint for their management until the 1960s; this act also places Federal forest administration under the jurisdiction of the General Land Office, Department of the Interior. This year and the next, John Muir publishes two articles in the Atlantic Monthly, "The American Forests" (1897) and "The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West," which reveal the shift in his thought from compromise to absolute opposition on the question of "use" of protected resources; these articles are later republished in his book Our National Parks, in 1901. A classic work of nature-writing for young people, Citizen Bird, the joint creation of an ornithologist (Elliott Coues), a nature-writer (Mabel Osgood Wright), and a wildlife artist (Louis Agassiz Fuertes), suggests the conjunction of science, aesthetics, and moralistic pedagogical enthusiasm which inspired both the surge of popular ornithology in this era and much of the grass-roots support for preservationist conservation measures.
1898
Gifford Pinchot appointed chief of the Division of Forestry in the Department of Agriculture; begins crusade to convert the public and forest industry to support for scientific forest management. Ernest Seton Thompson (later better known as Ernest Thompson Seton) publishes his best-selling Wild Animals I Have Known, the first entry in a new genre of anthropomorphic wild-animal stories by Thompson Seton and others; scientific accuracy in these works was always suspect, but their vast popularity, and capacity to engender fascination with and sentimental concern for American wildlife, was never in doubt, and Thompson Seton himself was genuinely concerned with the moral obligations of humans toward wildlife. Exemplifying the links between sport and the conservation movement, ardent conservationist George Oliver Shields, founder, editor and publisher of Recreation magazine and (from 1905) of Shields' Magazine, founds the League of American Sportsmen to advance the cause of conservation through members of the sporting public; Shields is the League's only president and guiding force, and it declines along with his personal fortunes after 1908.
1899
Frank M. Chapman founds Bird-Lore magazine as the organ of the nation's Audubon Societies; it becomes the leading popular journal of ornithology and nature study in this era, and exerts incalculable influence on the growth of conservation knowledge and popular support; today it continues under its later name, Audubon. Congress passes a bill establishing Mount Rainier National Park, Washington. The Harriman Alaska Expedition explores coastal Alaska by boat throughout the summer. The Expedition is undertaken by a group of distinguished citizens, many of whom are actively involved in conservationism, including numerous scientists under the direction of C. Hart Merriam (Chief, U.S. Biological Survey), John Muir, John Burroughs, photographer Edward Curtis, forester Bernhard Fernow, George Bird Grinnell, and artists Frederick Dellenbaugh and Louis Agassiz Fuertes, funded and accompanied by railroad magnate Edward H. Harriman and members of his family. The Expedition produces a remarkable private Album of "Chronicles and Souvenirs" that captures much of the spirit and outlook which animated the conservation movement in this era, while the major results of the Expedition's scientific and ethnological investigations fill fifteen volumes published between 1901 and 1914.
1900
Congress passes the first comprehensive Federal legislation designed to protect wildlife: the Lacey Act, so called in recognition of its chief sponsor, Rep. John F. Lacey, which outlaws the interstate shipment of any wild animals or birds killed in violation of state laws. At the urging of the California Club, a San Francisco women's organization, Congress passes a Joint Resolution authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to purchase two ndangered groves of Sequoia gigantea in California; though the effort is not successful, it highlights the increasing private and public commitment to protection of the nation's natural wonders, and the role of women's groups in the conservation movement. William E. Smythe publishes The Conquest of Arid America, an ardently optimistic vision of the future for an irrigated West, linking democratic opportunity to the large-scale technological control of natural resources; at a time when irrigation was understood to be an integral aspect of conservation, this work exemplifies the mentality which created popular support for the Newlands Reclamation Act in 1902.