TAHPDX: History Topic

Image Citation: Logo of the U.S. Forest Service.

Time Period: Late 19th and Early 20th Century

Western European countries had a long legacy of conserving forests to ensure a steady supply of timber and the health of watersheds by the turn of the twentieth century.  But conservation faced more opposition in the United States, where most people believed that nature’s bounty was unlimited and that government had no right to interfere with private enterprise.  By the late nineteenth century, though, more leaders had become concerned that the nation’s forests were being logged recklessly and inefficiently.  Presidents began identifying forest reserves in the 1890s, though this recognition had little tangible impact on forest use.  Gifford Pinchot, a forester trained in Germany, argued that the forest reserves should be administered by a new agency staffed with forestry specialists: the U.S. Forest Service.  Buttressed by the support of President Theodore Roosevelt, a fellow conservationist, Pinchot got his wish in 1905.  Under Pinchot’s leadership, the young agency greatly expanded the amount of acres it controlled and raised the fees that it collected from loggers and grazers.  It touted the concept of sustained yield in which trees were managed much like crops in efficient, long-term rotations.  These policies prompted criticism from both private interests who resented government regulation and preservationists who believed that more federal land should be set aside for recreational use.  These debates have been particularly acute in the Pacific Northwest, where the federal government has long controlled a great deal of land.  We continue to disagree on the uses to which federal forests and other land should be put.

This topic is scheduled for completion in 2011. Narrative and links will be posted by the end of June, 2011.