A History of Forest Conservation in the Pacific Northwest, 1891-1913

The movement for forest conservation began in the United States shortly after the Civil War. A variety of people became interested in preserving and perpetuating the forests about that time. They included scientists and scientific groups alarmed over forest depletion, both because of the indirect effects of the forests in perpetuating water flow, and for fear of a timber scarcity; recreational and aesthetic groups, desiring to preserve areas of unique scenic beauty; and men disturbed by violation of public land laws and the corrupt alliance of economic interests and politics. In the Pacific Northwest—Washington and Oregon—recreational groups made efforts to preserve the Crater Lake and other scenic areas in the Cascades.

The efforts of the conservationists were crowned with success in 1891, when a bill permitting the President to set aside forest reserves was passed. Through the work of local groups, four such reserves were set aside in the Pacific Northwest between 1891 and 1893. Two, the Cascade Range Reserve and the Pacific Forest Reserve, were set aside primarily to preserve scenic areas. Two others, the Bull Run Forest Reserve and the Ashland Forest Reserve, were set aside to protect city watersheds. In 1897, through recommendations of the National Academy, three other reserves were set aside in the state of Washington—the Olympic, the Rainier, and the Washington Forest Reserves.

The years 1897 to 1905 were spent by the national government in trying to get an efficient forest administration. The federal forests were under three bureaus with conflicting jurisdiction. General control of the reserves was under the General Land Office, while the Geological Survey and the Bureau of Forestry had specialized functions in connection with the reserves. Administration under the Land Office was corrupt and inefficient, and conservationists desired transfer of the forests to a bureau staffed by professional foresters. After an eight-year fight, the reserves—now called the National Forests—were placed under the Forest Service in 1905, with a professional forester—Gifford Pinchot—heading the bureau.

During those years, a number of local problems were met in the Northwest. A grazing policy, which later became a model for the national policy, was established in the Cascade Range in 1897. In Washington, several reserve boundaries were redrawn and the reserves reduced in size, in response to local pressures. In both Washington and Oregon, a number of new reserves were created after survey by the bureau of Forestry and the Geological Survey. Local sentiment varied greatly toward given reserves; in general, support or opposition depended on whether the reserve helped or hindered local interests.

Administrative decentralization of the National Forests began in 1905 and was completed in 1908. Under the district foresters, the local administration had a great deal of self government. The first two district foresters, E. T. Allen and C. S. Chapman, put administration of the forests on a professional basis; made the beginning of a policy for timber management and helped establish a grazing policy for all the forests in the district.

The period between 1905 and 1913 was marked in the region by a series of attacks on the Forest Service by a coalition of conservative politicians and land looters. The people, as a whole, however, supported the Forest Service, and efforts to undermine or end the federal forest policy failed. More important than these attacks was the growing cooperation—the triple alliance—of state, federal and private timberland owners, expressed through a variety of guild asociations, among which the Western Forestry and Conservation Association was the most important. By 1913 the Northwest set a model for the rest of the country in cooperative fire protection, and was ready to extend their work into other forest problems.