Men Who Matched the Mountains: The Forest Service in the Southwest

Many a man who started as a $60 or $90-a-month Ranger went on to a distinguished career in the Forest Service. Generally, in reminiscent mood or writing of their experiences, they looked back with nostalgia to the early days of Forest Service employment.

Leon F. Kneipp, who held many important positions with the Forest Service and who contributed significantly to the development of the Service's grazing policies and procedures, started as a Ranger on the Prescott Forest Reserve in 1900 at $60 a month. By 1902, his salary had been raised to $90, "which put me right next to the Supervisor."

In a long letter to a friend several years ago, Kneipp described conditions and some of the duties in the Prescott Reserve in the early 1900's.

"Crown King was a hardship job because it was completely isolated from all centers of production or distribution," he wrote. "Horses had to be fed hay and rolled barley, which sometimes soared to $30 per ton and $2.75 per 70-pound sack. There were lots of vacant mining shacks, but all other items were high, so a $60-a-month Ranger salary, which had to keep a horse as well as the Ranger, had no attraction for men who could get $3.00 per 8-hour day."

The most picturesque of the early Rangers on the Prescott Reserve, he wrote, was William H. Cokely. Cokely, who served as Ranger for only a few months in 1903 and '04, "claimed a sponsor who knew where some of the residue of the Government camel herd was still running loose and had hired him to corral them."

Until his project got under way, Cokely supposedly was at loose ends and took a job with the Reserve.

"He was a superb horse-breaker and rider," Kneipp remembered, "so instead of buying horses, he talked local ranchers into turning some of their young horses over to him, later to be returned as well-broken and gentle, which they were."

In 1904, Kneipp was detailed to accompany Lou Barrett on an inspection trip of the Prescott Reserve. When they arrived at Cokely's District, the Crown King, Kneipp introduced Barrett to Cokely.

"Hello Cokely, remember me?"

Cokely looked at him suspiciously. Barrett added, "Gut ribber, Troop D."

Cokely lost his caution and brightened up. "Why Lou Barrett, you such-and-such so-and-so."

Cokely and Barrett had soldiered together in the Philippines, chasing Aguinaldo.

One of Cokely's duties was, of course, to notify trespassers to vacate if they built illegally on Reserve lands. In those days, as Kneipp pointed out, "whenever a considerable number of virile males was brought together by a new mining development or railroad or reservoir construction, a coterie of feminine charm was soon in nearby residence. When asked by what right they were occupying the area, the stock reply was, 'Come out and I'll show you my mining location and discovery shaft.'

"The case would be reported to the General Land Office in Washington and the consistent result was to serve a notice for vacating the area in 10 days. When nothing had happened following such service, the General Land Office was so advised and the usual instruction was to serve another 10-day notice. Some of the places had three or four such notices pasted on the bar mirrors."

Kneipp recalled that when the railroad was constructed to Crown King, a woman named Bernice established a place half way between the King and Mayer. Cokely rode over to the place to serve a second 10-day notice on her.

"The talk was pretty rough," said Kneipp. "But Cokely could be about as vitriolic as any, so that he didn't mind. However, something happened to upset him. He was riding a half-broken bronc, and he was somewhat careless in mounting him. The horse dumped him—head first into a rainwater barrel at the corner of the building.

"According to an eye-witness, he was upended in the water, and one of the male habitues declared: 'He got in by hisself, let the s.o.b. get out by hisself.' But Bernice declared she didn't want a charge of murder added to her other complications and made them haul Cokely out."

It was soon after that episode that Cokely left the Crown King District, and associates lost track of him. He was succeeded by Frank C. W. Pooler, who stayed with the Forest Service for a distinguished lifetime career.

Roscoe G. Willson, another pioneer in the Forest Service, started in the Crown King District. He had knocked around Mexico and Arizona as a prospector and miner and took a job in the Crown King, working there for five years before Ranger Frank Pooler suggested he take the examination for fireguard in December, 1905. He passed, and then in the spring of 1906 passed the examination for Ranger.

After serving on the Prescott, for a year, Willson was sent to what the Rangers in those days referred to as the "Sneeze-Cough Forest." It was composed of the Huachuca, the Tumacacori, and the Baboquivari—which is how the "Sneeze-Cough" name originated.

Reminiscing at his home in Phoenix, Willson recalled that it was on the Sneeze-Cough Forest in 1908 that he first met Will C. Barnes,* who is probably better known to the reading public as a writer than as a Forest Service official.

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*Will C. Barnes joined the Army in 1879 and served in the Signal Corps in Arizona, taking part in the Apache campaign of 1881, for which he received a Medal of Honor. After Army service he operated cattle ranches in New Mexico and Arizona and served in the legislatures of both states. After the reorganization of the Forest Service in 1907, Chief Forester Pinchot appointed him Assistant Forester and Chief of Grazing, and he had a distinguished career in the Forest Service until his retirement in 1928. In the 1920's he turned to writing and produced a tremendous volume of articles and books on Arizona history, personal reminiscences, and on outdoor subjects. Barnes died in 1936.

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"He came down there to make an inspection of the Forest," Willson recalled, "and among other things I took him out to the old Tumacacori Mission. He became interested, and it was through him that they sent me an engineer to go out and survey 10 acres around the Mission and have it withdrawn as a National Monument."

Headquarters of the Forest was at Nogales, and as Willson recalled, there was no one name for the group of individual Forest Districts.

"I met with the Chamber of Commerce in Nogales and told them we wanted a name for the Forest—something that applied to the history of the region. Well, one of them suggested Padre Garces, a missionary who had been in that region quite a good deal.

"This Father Garces was the first missionary to come into Arizona after Father Kino, who had little missions at Tumacacori and where Tucson is now—San Xavier. Garces was the first priest after him. He established a mission at Yuma, and for some reason he aroused antagonism among the Indians and they killed him, along with a number of Spanish soldiers.

"I recommended that the new name of the Forest be Garces* National Forest, and that was done."

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*Combined with Coronado National Forest, April, 1911.

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Willson recalled that one of his first problems was a trespass case against one of the big mining companies of the District.

"They had been cutting thousands of cords of wood," he said. "At the time I went down there, they had long stacks of it, several hundred cords piled up.

"I was instructed to start trespass proceedings against them to collect damages. It was nice live oak wood that they used in the mill in the boilers. So I started suit against them. They settled without going to court."

Another trespass case was of a different kind. The San Rafael Land Grant was owned by Colin Cameron, a brother of Senator Cameron of Pennsylvania. The grant boundaries called for six square leagues.

"He interpreted this to mean six leagues square—which made a vast difference. The cattlemen there told me that he had run his fences way outside the grant, taking in a lot of land which now was included within the Forest. So it was up to me to do something about it. I went to Mr. Cameron and got him up to the office and talked it over with him. All I could get out of Cameron was the threat that he would take my job away from me. I told him, 'Well, all right, go ahead and get my job, but you're going to have to take your fence down and put it back on the real lines of the grant, which calls for six square leagues, not six leagues square.' Well, he was going to fight it by law. He didn't do anything and finally I went out there and told him, I said, 'Now, Mr. Cameron, if you haven't started to take that fence down by Monday I'm going to come out with the Rangers and we're going to take it down.' Well, I went out on Monday and I saw he had a crew of men taking the fence down and putting it back on the line. I had a man named Fred Crater who had run the boundary and had marked it, so he was putting his fence back on the true line of the San Rafael grant. That was one of the most interesting things that happened while I was down there on the border."

In 1905, a new regulation was adopted charging a grazing fee on and after January 1, 1906, for stock ranging at large on the Reserve ranges. This provided some serious problems for the Rangers, and Willson recalled some of his experiences with this situation while he was on the Tonto National Forest.

"I found that the cattlemen were not applying for anywhere near the number of cattle that they owned," he said. "The Rangers I had were mostly locals, and they knew the situation pretty well. They knew about what each individual had. I tried to raise the permits when it came time to make the grazing applications, and I didn't do very well. I couldn't get much increase out of them so I started in and organized cattle associations in each Ranger District. I got the cattlemen a little interested in getting to the meetings and I told them, I said, 'Now, you fellows get together among yourselves and decide how many cattle each of you is going to apply for.' 'Well,' they said, 'darn it, there's the county tax assessor's records; we don't want to show up too many cattle at tax time.' I said, 'Of course that's true, but you are going to have to pay the grazing fee on approximately the number of cattle you have here.'

"Well, they were in a great stew over that, having to pay the county tax fee on that basis, but I did manage to get a little raise out of them. I couldn't get them to agree to talk it over among themselves and put down how many each one would apply for. They would look at each other and say, 'Hell, I'm not going to tell how many John's got, and he's not going to tell how many I've got.' It was not a great deal of increase, although I did get some. But it was a good try; by organizing those cattle associations."

Problems with the stockmen were not to be solved overnight, and as R. A. Rogers recalls, "conditions were in a turmoil in the spring of 1908. About that time I was ordered to Nogales to relieve Roscoe G. Willson, who had been called to Washington. My first caller was Max Axford, general manager of the Green Cattle Co.

"Max did not sit down, and looked mad clear through. He said Willson had notified them that if they did not remove their cattle, he would round them up and drive 4500 of them to the Baboquivari Mountains, 75 miles or more across the desert. I told him I was the Supervisor for the time being, and if he would sit down we would go over the matter and that he would not be more fair than I would be.

"His company, or their cowboys, had torn out watering places, pried out water pipes, torn down windmills, etc. I told him there was not going to be any such thing as attempting to drive their cattle; that their status would be gone over later and a proper and fair settlement made. He agreed that the company men would repair all damaged water places and we would start over on a friendly basis.

"That night I had a telephone message from Will Barnes at Phoenix. I met him at Lully's restaurant in the evening and after eating we went to the office where we went over the Green Cattle Company's case, which was what he had come for. After we had finished he said, 'I was sent here on this case and told to go to the range and make a personal investigation, but I am not going there. I shall report that we have a man on the ground capable of caring for the situation, and I shall leave for Washington tomorrow morning.'

"We began to try to find out how many cattle were being grazed on the Forest, which raised the antagonism to a high pitch. Robert Selkirk and John Kerr came down from the Regional Office to try to help. Kerr was the most untalkative man I ever had met. He had forgotten more about the cattle business than most stockmen had ever learned, and knew the grazing regulations absolutely. Kind, honest and considerate always, but I often thought when I heard him give a decision that he must sweat icicles.

"Cattle rustling was not legalized then, though there was little said about it, for everybody was doing it. Only when a friendless chap got caught was he taken to court. Most cases were settled on the ground at the time, and many times one man was left on the ground when the case was closed. Cattle rustling was down to a fine art with some."

Sheep were also a problem on the Tonto. While he was still on the Tonto, Willson estimated there were in the neighborhood of 100,000 sheep "that came down from the mountains and went out onto the desert. They came down here to lamb and to shear, then went back over the trail. My predecessor there, William H. Reed, had laid out a sort of trail. He and his Rangers had put posts along, laying it out, but they hadn't marked the sides or anything, and hadn't gone into it very thoroughly. One of my first jobs on the Tonto was to go out with the boys and lay out this sheep trail. One reason that it was advisable was that the year before I went there a cowman had killed a sheep man. There was a great deal of disturbance on the Tonto and the cowboys were constantly threatening the sheepherders.

"In fact I remember George Scott taking his sheep down through Johnny Tillson's ranch. A couple of men came out to stop him. Scott had his rifle across his saddle. He just turned his horse sideways so that the rifle would point right at Johnny Tilison's belly and he said: 'Now Johnny, you know we don't want to eat any more of your range than we possibly have to. I'll get the sheep out of here just as quick as we can, but we've got to get through here and there's no use in saying anything more.'

"Johnny looked at the rifle pointing at his belly and he said, 'All right, George, you get out as quick as you can.'"

There was another time when Scott was not so fortunate. The incident was recalled by Senior Forest Ranger Fred W. Croxen at the Tonto Grazing Conference in Phoenix in November, 1926:

"The sheepmen from the higher country and from New Mexico got to driving their herds into the Tonto country and on the west slope of the Mazatzals to winter on the grass and to lamb in the spring. This country had already been fully stocked by the cattlemen, and it only worked a hardship on them to have these sheep wintered on their range. A range war was about to open when the Tonto National Forest was created. . . .

"One fall, George Scott, one of the present (1926) users of the Heber-Reno Driveway, came on Hardscrabble Mesa west of Pine with four bands of sheep and heavily armed herders and tenders. Seventeen cattlemen took them unawares and disarmed the outfit, threw the bands together, shoved them off into Fossil Creek and told them not to come back. Scott had camped away from the bands . . . and could not be found by the cattlemen."

Roscoe Willson noted that those kinds of trespass cases are no problem today since "everything is clearly marked out and time-apportionment on the Forests is decided."

"The Babbitt Brothers were among the biggest sheep owners in Arizona at one time," Willson said. "I don't think they have any today. They leased out a good many of their sheep to other people, some Basques and others. Anyway, one of their outfits had been out on the desert during the winter and came back into the Forest near the Superstition Mountains and just spread out and started lambing. You know they break them up into little bunches and get extra herders when they're lambing to take care of each bunch. They put up little tents and put the lambs in with their mothers when they won't recognize each other.

"A cattleman came to me right away and said, 'Here they are camped on my range and are eating up my food and what are you going to do about it?' 'Well,' I said, 'I don't suppose I can move them if they are lambing now, but I'll go down there and try to give them a lesson anyway.'

"So I got Jim Girdner (Jim is dead now) and we went down there. I consulted the United States Attorney and he told me what to do. So Jim and I went down there and we arrested three or four different herders. We didn't take enough men away to leave the sheep neglected, you understand, so that they could not possibly bring suit for allowing their sheep to be destroyed. We took the herders down to Phoenix and had a trial in the U. S. Court. Babbitt Brothers came down there, Dave and George.

"The first man that was brought in was the foreman, Avilla, a Basque. Judge Knave, I think it was, fined him $400. We had five or six other men under arrest. I was standing at the back with Dave Babbit and he said, 'My God, are you going to soak all those fellows like that?' I said, 'Well, I don't know. That's strictly up to the Judge.' The others were just common herders, you know, and the Judge just fined them a dollar and gave them a good talking to. He told them they must pay the dollar and said that their desires couldn't come ahead of Government regulations; that they couldn't do as they pleased on the National Forest. The Babbitts were greatly relieved when they found that the other fellows were fined only a dollar each."

The extent of the permit use of the Forest grazing lands at that time is indicated by the annual report of Willard M. Drake, Supervisor of the Coconino National Forest, for 1910, which showed a total of 33,200 head of cattle and 89,550 head of sheep under permit. These figures did not include livestock not reported or trespassing on Forest lands.

Over on the Pecos River Reserve in New Mexico a new Ranger on the Reserve had a few trespass troubles early in his career. Tom Stewart, who eventually became "Mr. Pecos" to old-timers in the Forest Service, started his career on May 1, 1902, with a letter notifying him of his appointment, accompanied by a map, some stationery, and a directive to "Get busy." Stewart related the story of his early years on the Pecos to Bob Kelleher of the Regional Office Information and Education staff in 1942:

"I put in the rest of the summer of 1902 chasing trespassing herds of livestock off the Forest, fighting several small fires, trying to establish some sort of boundary on the west side of my District (that had never been surveyed), and getting acquainted with the District and the people in or near it. There were homesteads and other private land inside the Forest, just as there are today.

"To know whether logging or grazing trespass was occurring inside the eastern boundary, I finally bought a pocket compass and ran my own line over the rough country. It wouldn't stand in court, but it helped me find and report many trespass cases.

"Boundary disputes and political influence kept all but two of the cases from standing up in court. That embarrassed me, and at times I felt discouraged to the extent of giving up the job. But I liked the work and determined to stick.

"Figuring I couldn't do anything through the courts, I used an educational plan of my own. Eighty percent of the people in that locality were Spanish-American. I had a knack of making friends of them, so I attended their fiestas and dances, held meetings when the chance allowed, and explained the purpose of the Forest Reserves. Before long I had the better and influential element seeing the light, and from then on my job was somewhat easier.

"That did not stop all the trespass, of course. One case I found out about involved the taking of considerable unpurchased timber from the Reserve, by a prominent politician who had a small sawmill on the upper Gallinas River, north of Las Vegas. I'll call him Don Carlos though that isn't his name. He claimed title to the land, but through my Supervisor I obtained General Land Office records, checked section lines on the ground, and determined the timber land involved was inside the Forest Reserve. I offered Don Carlos a chance to pay the Government for the timber he had cut. He got mad and refused, but stopped cutting in the Reserve. Despite his influence, he was brought to trial in Federal court at Las Vegas. He finally settled, paying something over $1,000."

Stewart had sheep troubles too. As Rangers had no power to make arrests, he could only drive the sheep off the Reserve.

"Some herders were bad hombres," Stewart recalled, "and the life of a Ranger driving them off the Forest was not too safe. Whenever it would take several days to drive a band of sheep out to the boundary, I would pitch my camp at night two or three miles from the herders' camp, and just to make sure they wouldn't try sticking a knife in me while I slept, I would sleep several hundred yards away from my camp.

"Things changed when Rangers finally received arrest power, and I got sweet vengeance. A band of sheep which belonged to somewhat of a politician in Rio Arriba County had been trespassing regularly in the Santa Barbara vicinity in the Forest. It had got to be a joke among the herders because I would chase them off, and in a few days I would find them back again. As soon as we got power to make arrests, I sent to Las Vegas for handcuffs and a padlock and ten feet of chain and started making tracks for the Santa Barbara country. Sure enough, I found three herders (two men and a boy) with sheep and no permit. They gave me the horse laugh, but I disclosed the joke was on them this time. I arrested the men and sent the boy home on a burro to get other herders.

"Camping for the night, I handcuffed the prisoners to a tree. I felt certain their case would be dismissed in Santa Fe, so I decided they should get their justice on the way. After the new herders arrived and I gave the prisoners breakfast, I handcuffed each of the two, got on my horse and marched them 25 miles on foot to Windsor's ranch. From there we traveled by buckboard and train to Santa Fe. Their case was dismissed but it was soon rumored around that Rangers had police powers, and the trespass troubles became less numerous."

Although Tom Stewart and some of the other early Rangers and fire guards may have started their jobs with only scanty instructions from the Supervisors, it was not long before the Forest Service had voluminous and detailed instructions covering almost every conceivable situation.

The early Use Books produced under the direction of Gifford Pinchot, Chief Forester, are now so rare as to be collector's items. The Use Book was a manual of instructions and information covering such subjects as organization, personnel, meetings, examinations, claims, various uses of the National Forests, timber sales, grazing, fire-fighting, and even such odds and ends as detailed instructions for using Rangers' card record cases and filing equipment, by drawers and sections.

It is interesting to note that in its very first sentence the Use Book expresses the philosophy that "The timber, water, pasture, minerals and other resources of the National Forests are for the use of the people."

This explains why the Forest Service dropped the name "Forest Reserves" and began to use the name "National Forests." "Reserve" was a misnomer for it was the intention to use the Forests, not reserve them.

Referring to the resources of the National Forest, the Use Book pointed out that they "may be obtained under reasonable conditions without delay. Legitimate improvements and business enterprises are encouraged. National Forests are open to all persons for all lawful purposes." The purpose in creating the National Forests was summed up in this sentence:

"The National Forests are created to preserve a perpetual supply of timber for home industries, to prevent destruction of the forest cover which regulates the flow of streams, and to protect local residents from unfair competition in the use of forest and range."

While Tom Stewart was Supervisor of the Pecos National Forest, he had a young fellow in his District who had become a Ranger on January 1, 1909, and served briefly in the Jemez District. He was to become well known later as State Game Warden of New Mexico—a position he held for many years. His name was Elliott Barker.

"My first assignment was to headquarter at the town of Cuba in Sandoval County on the west side of Jemez Forest," Barker related.

"That was pretty rugged country in those days: I mean the people were pretty rough. There had been two Rangers—I don't recall their first names—but Brennan and Thomas, ex-Philippine campaign soldiers, had been sent over there in April, right after they had taken the examination. They had gotten into serious trouble and really got the very dickens beat out of them there one night at a saloon—where they shouldn't have been. So they quit; they had had enough. I was sent over there with A. W. Sypher, a mountain man from Arkansas, I believe it was, or maybe it was Tennessee, who knew his way around in that company. The two of us were sent.

"I was just a big overgrown 22-year-old kid, didn't have sense enough to be afraid of anything, so we went over there together. Our instructions from Ross McMillan, the Supervisor, were that we were to live together, work together, and were never to step outside of the house without our sidearms on and at the ready. We were never to ride alone anywhere and we were never to be out after dark, under any conditions. Those were our definite instructions. We were to stay out of trouble if possible and to try to tame that country.

"Now the reason that we had quite a problem was that the leaders over there, particularly one man who was very powerful politically, resented the Forest Service coming in very, very much. The common people, I don't think did, but their leaders inspired them to all kinds of devilment. The leaders resented the Forest Service coming in, prohibiting them from cutting timber how, where and when they pleased, and prohibiting them from running as many cattle or sheep on the Forests as they wanted to. They resented having to pay any grazing fee or to have to submit to any Government regulations. The going was really pretty tough. We stuck it out, though. Along in the late summer of 1909, Sypher was given another partner and they moved up to the little town of LaJara above Cuba. I was sent over to Bluebird Mesa where I joined up with Ranger W. B. Bletcher who had a little more experience as a Ranger than either Sypher or me. We worked together there until October. I may say that we stayed out of any serious trouble. I never did have to use my gun, but there were many, many times that if I hadn't had it I would have been in serious trouble; there is no question about that. On one or two occasions Bletcher did have to draw his gun but he never did use it."

In the fall of 1909, the Carson, Jemez and Santa Fe National Forests were placed under separate Supervisors. McMillan took the Carson Forest. Frank Andrews was promoted from Deputy Supervisor on the Gila to Supervisor of the Jemez, and Tom Stewart, Deputy Supervisor of the Jemez, Pecos, and Carson was made Supervisor of the Pecos Forest. He knew of young Barker's capabilities and the fact that he was intimately acquainted with the Pecos country, and he asked Frank Andrews to allow Barker to be transferred. Andrews gave his consent, and Barker returned to the country where he had guided hunting parties and where as a youngster he had hunted predators himself for the bounty of $2.00 on bobcats and $20 on mountain lions and bears.

In his book "Beatty's Cabin,"* Barker tells a delightful story of one of his earliest assignments on the Pecos:

"I rode over to the H. S. (Steve) Arnold place on Chaparrito Creek, to take his application for a grazing permit on the National Forest for that season. I had never met the Arnold family; but at the house, Mrs. Arnold told me that Mr. Arnold and the boys were over on the Cow Creek place, three miles away, baling hay, so I rode on over there.

"It had been cold, and there was considerable snow on the ground and in fact, much of the Creek was still frozen over. When I got to the canyon, I could see the baling crew at work at a haystack a half-mile below. I noticed someone over at the creek, a hundred yards away, so I rode over there to inquire for Mr. Arnold.

"Imagine my surprise when I rode around a clump of willows and came face to face with the prettiest little sixteen-year-old girl I ever did see, standing there on the ice over a big pool in the river. The young lady was as surprised as I was, and why shouldn't she be? She was fishing for trout through the ice with a horsehair snare, which was, of course, illegal. Worse yet, it was out of season and she had no fishing license, but boy she did have a beautiful string of trout!

"It should be remembered that Forest Rangers then, as now, are required by Federal statute to cooperate in the enforcement of the state game and fish laws and, hence, they carry deputy game warden commissions. Now what would you have done had you been in my place? Chivalry was not dead; on the other hand, an oath of office in which one swears to enforce the laws of the state is not to be taken lightly. She was in a predicament, and I was facing a dilemma. She courteously directed me to her father down the canyon at the hay baler. That gave me time to think and her time to repent. What should I do?

"She said she didn't have the money to pay a fine, and I knew the judge would say she was too young to put in jail, so what? Well, to make a long story short, the law allows two years in which to file a complaint for a game law violation. In some devious way, within that time limitation, she was remanded to my personal custody; and in season and with proper license, she has been fishing with me ever since.

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*Published by University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque 1953. Quoted by special permission.

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Barker and Ethel Arnold were married the next year and in the summer of 1911 were living at the Panchuela Ranger Station, 18 miles up in the mountains from the town of Pecos, when Barker got into trouble over a telephone line.

The Forest Service's Use Book had an instruction that arrangements should be made as rapidly as possible to connect the Supervisor's headquarters with the Rangers headquarters and the lookout stations, so that fires could be reported and other business managed expeditiously.

In the summer of 1912, a telephone company employee named Starkweather was sent to the Pecos Forest to experiment with different methods of stringing telephone wire quickly to get to forest fires or make connections.

"He used a very small insulated wire that was supposed to be strung out from a spool attached to the back of a saddle," Barker said.

"You know, it looked pretty ridiculous to me, and actually, it didn't work. It was an experiment that was worthy to be carried out, and I was supposed to work in cooperation with him. Well, at any rate, that kind of thing didn't appeal to me too much and I guess I just didn't cooperate like I should.

"At any rate, I got into trouble with my Supervisor and particularly with the Regional Forester. A. C. Waha was in charge of Personnel-Operation I believe they called it—and he insisted on my transfer to the Carson National Forest. In fact they talked about firing me, but finally decided to transfer me to the Carson, against my will. I didn't want to go. I didn't want to leave the Pecos country.

"However, I consented to go to the Carson, and it was the most fortunate move that was ever made by or for me. It so happened that Aldo Leopold was Supervisor of the Carson National Forest. Even then our avocations more or less coincided—our thinking on wildlife, the outdoors, recreation, that sort of thing. We hit it off wonderfully well from the very first time we met, right on through. I never had the slightest trouble up there. Leopold put me to work on things I knew how to do and could do, and I did the best I could for him. I think it was the most fortunate thing that ever happened to me to be able to work under a man like Aldo Leopold, who later became perhaps the world's greatest authority on wildlife and wildlife management."

Leopold had been made Forest Supervisor of the Carson National Forest in 1912, with headquarters at Tres Piedras.

Raymond E. Marsh, Deputy Supervisor of the Carson at the time, in a letter to Edward P. Cliff, Chief of the Forest Service, in August, 1967, related a most dramatic incident involving Leopold.

"In the latter part of March, 1913, Leopold started on a month-long horseback trip to the westernmost (Jicarilla) Division of the Forest," Marsh wrote. "He had to cross the Amarilla Division, the Tierra Amarilla Grant, and the Jicarilla Indian Reservation, a distance of about 100 miles. I remained in the office, in charge.

"The late-winter, early-spring weather was cold and wet. Conditions were not propitious for such a trip. We lost communication with Leopold. It was unusual for a Supervisor to be entirely out of touch with his office for a matter of weeks, even in those days of poor communication. Then, one forenoon, he unexpectedly walked into the office. He had left his horse in the Jicarilla country, and returned to Tres Piedras by the narrow gauge railroad that extended from Durango, Colorado, to Alamosa, with a branch line (long ago discontinued) from Antonito south through Tres Piedras to Santa Fe.

"Leopold's and my desk were back to back, mine facing the door. I clearly remember his appearance as he entered the room. His face, hands, arms and legs were badly swollen. His cowboy riding boots had been slashed so he could get them on. He emphatically insisted that nothing was seriously wrong, and seemed to think that with a few days rest he would be all right. Lee Harris, the Lands staff man, and I thought differently. We insisted that he take the next train (the following day) to Santa Fe for medical attention, which he did, reluctantly. His wife was there.

"His illness was diagnosed as acute Bright's disease. I was later told it was caused by the inclement weather of the season; that the acute form was sometimes curable, whereas the chronic form was not; that another 24-hour delay in medical attention would have been fatal. He was critically ill for many weeks. He convalesced in Santa Fe (Mrs. Leopold's home), and with relatives in Iowa. It has always been in my memory that he was on leave for 18 months. He eventually returned to duty as staff officer in the District Office."

Aldo Leopold served in a number of positions with the Forest Service from 1909 until 1924 when he left to become associate director of the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1933, the University of Wisconsin created the chair of Game Management for Leopold. He gained national fame as an ecologist through his teachings and writings. Ironically, he died in 1948 while fighting a grass fire near his home in Wisconsin. In 1954, the Gila Wilderness, the first National Forest area so designated, was dedicated in tribute to his memory as a pioneer in wilderness preservation. The wilderness was established in 1924.