Forests and forestry

A thorough history chronicling the establishment of Olympic National Park, written for the fiftieth anniversary of the park. The narrative follows the early expeditions into the Olympic Mountains, the efforts by Theodore Roosevelt and his administration to preserve the area through its designation as a national monument and forest reserve, and later legislative and local efforts to establish it as a national park

Collection

Olympic National Park

Creation Date

1988-05-16

Arno B. Cammerer, Acting Director of the National Park Service, responds to Abby Rhoda Hills’ inquiry regarding the establishment of a national park on the Olympic Peninsula. While the area has been noted as a potential site, the government has not yet decided that it meets the criteria for designation as a National Park. He suggests that the best way to preserve timber on the specific parcel of land Hills inquired about would be to get in touch with State park authorities. Cammerer agrees that it would be good if the National Park Service could eventually furnish materials for teachers relative to national parks, but thus far this hasn’t been accomplished.

Collection

Olympic National Park

Creation Date

1932

Stephen Tyng Mather, Director of the National Parks Service, responds to Madison Grant’s inquiry regarding whether there had ever been attempt to establish a national park on Washington state’s Olympic peninsula. Mather reviews the history of the establishment of a National Monument, the proposed bills that would previously have established a National Park, as well as some of the present difficulties surrounding the establishment of such a park.

Collection

Olympic National Park

Creation Date

1928-10-26

Char Miller opens and concludes his biography of Gifford Pinchot by asserting that the contemporary Republican Party under President George W. Bush has abandoned the conservation legacy the party built under Pinchot and Theodore Roosevelt. Miller looks at the evolution of Pinchot’s beliefs, extending back to his grandparents, and he demonstrates how Pinchot moved further to the left during the course of his career. By the time of the second Roosevelt presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt,  Pinchot had undergone a “radicalization” that called for the seizure of private forest lands. Miller highlights some of the individuals who worked with or against Pinchot in his forestry career.

Thirteen photographs supplement the text, including two of Theodore Roosevelt and six of Pinchot. 

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Barry W. Walsh provides an overview of the career of America’s first and most famous forester, Gifford Pinchot. Walsh emphasizes Pinchot’s work in government to promote forest conservation, and she examines his work with President Theodore Roosevelt and his dismissal under President William Howard Taft. Walsh also examines Pinchot’s bitter quarrel with John Muir over building a dam in the Hetch Hetchy valley in Yosemite National Park, and she notes his advising President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the founding of the Yale Forest School. A photograph of Pinchot appears in the article.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1987

A brief description of how the Wheeler Geologic Area was formed, how to get there, and how it came to be protected by the United States government.

Collection

Rio Grande National Forest

Creation Date

Unknown

This history of the Rio Grande National Forest focuses primarily on the timber industry within the Rio Grande National Forest. Prior to the area’s inclusion in the national forest system, it “suffered many abuses pertaining to the mismanagement of timber resources.” Additionally included in the report are lists of early sawmills and early timber sales associated with the Rio Grande National Forest.

Collection

Rio Grande National Forest

Creation Date

Unknown

George W. McLane has long admired Theodore Roosevelt’s work in forest conservation. He has been in the nursery trade in Mexico and Central America and knows trees that would do well in the various climates of the United States. McLane wants to discuss the matter with Roosevelt during his upcoming trip to New York.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-07-31

An invitation to a reception and banquet sponsored by the Harvard Forest School in conjunction with the Massachusetts Wholesale Lumber Association and the Lumber Trade Club of Boston.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-01

A complete reprint of Byron B. Waters’s report to the Tri-Counties Reforestation committee on opening the San Bernardino forest reserve to private holdings of forty-acre tracts.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-01-07

A note regarding the applications for student assistant position states that among many others, sixty students from regular forest schools applied. Twenty-seven students could be appointed. Three have already been selected.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-05-03

Grover Cleveland looks at the “Dem Party” as they walk “to the White House.” New York Governor Benjamin B. Odell and New York Senator Thomas Collier Platt stand behind a tree and shine a flashlight.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-12-01

President Roosevelt uses an axe to cut down the “postal inquiry” tree. He is surrounded by a forest of trees: “League island improvements,” “Alaskan boundary,” “Turkey,” “Finance,” “Panama Canal,” and “Trusts.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-09-04

“Marion County” holds a “national forest” bouquet “presented by Roosevelt.” She says, “Come down and go hunting. The woods are full of deer, bear, wild bore, and turkey!!” President Roosevelt tips his hat and says, “Dee-lighted!!!”

comments and context

Comments and Context

In 1908 President Roosevelt established the Ocala National Forest, 607 square miles, as the first National Forest east of the Mississippi River. It remains a unique oasis of untouched lands, distinctive landscapes, and native flora and fauna not existent elsewhere — a crowning jewel among of many of Roosevelt’s conservation and preservation initiatives.

This portion of the Congressional Record reports proceedings of the United States Senate in which Senator Benjamin R. Tillman calls attention to a circular going around that is using his name to spread a land grant scheme. Tillman wants to publicize this fraud so that people are not drawn in by it.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-02-19

David Starr Jordan tells Representative James Carson Needham that he is reluctant to advise Gifford Pinchot because the latter has superior knowledge of what to do with the forest around the Pinnacles. Jordan feels that the Pinnacles would benefit from remaining government property as it would prevent someone from enclosing them and “making a peep-show of them.”

Collection

Pinnacles National Park

Creation Date

1908-05-11

This draft of the Environmental Statement for the proposed Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park includes four parts: a summary and description of the proposal for Congress to designate 28,335 acres as wilderness, a description of the environment including geology and plant and animal life, an outline of environmental impact, and an outline of mitigating measures.

Collection

Denver Public Library

Creation Date

1972-09-10

This postcard is part of the Roosevelt Tour series, with an image of a forest on the front. Reverse has the description: “THE TROPIC JUNGLE. This is a characteristic photograph of the jungle lands of the coast country and of Uganda. Col. Roosevelt is doing most of his hunting, however, on the plains of Athi in the Masai country, which is in the belt between. There is not as much big game in the Uganda country owing to the fact that there is a greater native population there. In the central plateau, half the population was decimated in recent years by the sleeping sickness, caused by the deadly tse-tse fly.”

Collection

Fritz R. Gordner Collection

Creation Date

1909

President Roosevelt addresses the citizens of Redlands. He congratulates them on forest preservation, irrigation, urban development, prosperity, and citizenship. Roosevelt also thanks the soldiers and veterans present.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-05-07

President Roosevelt sits in a forest with a spyglass pointed at a tiger. Two teddy bears sit near signs. One sign says, “Notice – Dont shoot at the animals,” and the other says, “Posted. Reporters, Dogs, or Hunters Not Allowed.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1904