History of The Willamette National Forest

INTRODUCTION

Marion Clawson divided land use history in the post war period into two eras. First came the era of intensive management, lasting from near the end of the war into the 1960s. This was a time in which the land was made more productive by larger expenditures for labor and capital. Federal land areas were relatively fixed (except in Alaska) but more money was invested in them. These developments included roads, dams, and especially recreational facilities; land improvement in timber; and increased services to the public, particularly in recreation. All this required a greater expenditure of money, but also increased revenue. The first year in many in which the national forests' revenues were more than the expenditures was in 1951. This surplus lasted into the 1960s. Timber production, four billion board feet in 1950, went up to nine billion in 1960 (see Appendix). Recreational visits grew from three to ninety billion. Game forage increased 50 percent. [1]

On the national level, it was a period of general prosperity. Lyle F. Watts, Chief of the Forest Service from 1943-1952, saw the transition from the war years to the beginnings of the intense development activities in the national forests after the war. Richard E. McArdle, Chief from 1952 to 1962, was ideally suited by temperament and training to preside over this portion of the transition to multiple-use management. An able administrator—Arthur Greeley considered him to be the best the Forest Service had—McArdle was able to conciliate factional strife and to work with legislators. Edward P. Cliff, Chief from 1962-1972, had similar qualities.

Clawson's second era began—or rather super-imposed itself on the previous era—in the 1960s. It was an era of confrontation and consultation. The period was marked by the passage of a variety of new laws reflecting both the tendency to look to the Federal government as the means of solving problems, and the passing of laws as social and political protest. In these laws there was a tendency to substitute Congressional or judicial oversight for administrative discretion, so the forest officer had both more complex problems and less discretion and individual authority to solve them. There were both an increase in the general public, and more difficult guild or interest groups to deal with. In general, the post-war generation was more affluent, better traveled, and better educated than its predecessors, and consequently less deferential to forest officers and less likely to accept expertise. In addition the population was becoming increasingly urbanized. Such people were likely to have their sole real contact with the land in the field of recreation, and have difficulty in understanding the viewpoints of both forest-based industries and of woods workers. Added to this was the growth of activist groups, some seeking relief from real or imagined grievances by court action, some by lobbying, others by direct action; foundations which provided funds for test cases in environmental law; and an activist judiciary often more interested in establishing precedents than stare decisis. [2]

Supervisor Michael A. Kerrick, who served in the Willamette National Forest over a period of nearly 30 years, saw the era from that perspective. The fifties, he said, were the years of confidence, when we "had our laws and manuals rapidly converting the forests; we knew what we had to do; we were experts in doing it. The public, for whatever reason, had not got involved. It was fun; we didn't have the controversies you have now—at least that is my recollection." The sixties saw the landmark legislation of the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act (1960) and the Wilderness Act (1964). "The decade of the sixties, I guess, I would characterize as seeing the emergence of public concern, and emergence of concern for trying to integrate the resources." It was a period of activism also on the part of young people. [3]

Horace J. Andrews became Regional Forester in the Pacific Northwest in 1943 (see discussion in Chapter IV on his background). His tenure as Regional Forester was marked by the war effort and the post-war boom, when there was a rush to open the national forests for rapid development through increased timber sales, road construction, and truck hauling. In addition, the Sustained Yield Management Act of 1944 led to the legal agreements after the war for the Shelton Sustained Yield Unit in Washington and several Federal units in Oregon. He served until his untimely death in a car accident on March 24, 1951. Andrews was succeeded by Herb Stone.

J. Herbert Stone was born in Connecticut and a Yale Forestry School masters graduate in 1927. He had broad experience in the Forest Service from 1926-1967. His included work in the Allegheny National Forest and Forest Supervisor of the Nantahala and the Pisgah National Forests in 1933-1936. Then from 1936 to 1945, Stone was the assistant head of the division of state and private forestry and director of a wartime timber project in the North Central Region (old R-7), Director of the Central States Forest and Range Experiment Station in 1945-1946, and as Regional Forester in the Southern Region (R-8) in 1946-1951. In April 1951, Stone came became the Regional Forester for the Pacific Northwest Region. A forester's forester, he was widely admired for his professionalism and he received many awards, including the USDA Superior Service Award in 1960. Stone oversaw the Region go through a series of important Congressional actions, including the exchange of some O&C lands in the western Oregon forests with the BLM in 1956, passage of the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960, the Wilderness Act of 1964, and the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Stone retired on June 2, 1967, and was succeeded by Charles Connaughton.

Charles A. Connaughton, a native of Idaho, graduated with a BS in forestry from the University of Idaho in 1928, then obtained a masters of forestry from Yale in 1934. He was involved with silvicultural research at the Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station in Ogden, Utah, then watershed research at the Rocky Mountain Station at Ft. Collins, where he became the Director in 1940. Later, he was the Director of the Southern Forest Experiment Station. He was appointed as the Regional Forester in the Southern Region in 1951 and then in the Pacific Southwest (California) Region in 1955 before being selected as Regional Forester for the Pacific Northwest Region in 1967. He had great skill in reconciling competing uses of forest land, and in working with competing groups. He was a strong advocate of multiple-use in the national forests. Near the end of his tenure, the first Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE) was begun under the direction of the Wilderness Act of 1964. Connaughton served as Regional Forester until his retirement in 1971. [4]

In the Willamette National Forest, John Ray Bruckart ably managed the transition from custodial to intensive management. His last annual report on the forest, in 1953, showed his pride in his work of "taming a wild forest." He wrote of the heavy recreation use on the forest and the need for new facilities to replace the old ones set up by the CCC; the restocking of streams with game fish; the increase in big game habitat through wise logging practices; care of the land around the new dams at Detroit and Lookout Point; the increase in timber sales, much of it in small and salvage sales; reseeding and replanting; and spraying for spruce budworm. He was the last of the old time supervisors whose skills came from the "University of Hard Knocks" rather than formal education in forestry, and who brought wisdom, shrewdness, and friendliness to the forest community. He was succeeded by Robert Aufderheide. [5]

Robert Aufderheide spent all his short life in forestry work in the Pacific Northwest. Starting as a tree planter in the Gifford Pinchot NF in 1933, he graduated in forestry from Oregon State College in 1935. He served in the Rogue River and Siuslaw National Forests before becoming the research leader in the newly established Willamette Research Center at Corvallis. He served as Supervisor of the Umpqua National Forest, 1950-1954, and then transferred to the Willamette as Supervisor in 1954. He was an ardent dry fly fisherman. During his work with the Research Center, which involved work on the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, he spent his spare time fishing with others involved in research—Leo Isaac, Phil Briegleb, and Albert Hall, among others. He served for only five years, dying of cancer in 1959. Aufderheide Forest Drive, demonstrating renewal of the landscape after conservative logging practices, is an appropriate monument to his ability. [6]

Aufderheide felt that one of the chief jobs of the field man was in the area of public relations. Edward Anderson, District Ranger for the Blue River Ranger District, recalled:

...Aufderheide met with me and said my primary job was to restore confidence in the Forest Service by people in the McKenzie River area (Because of a near tragic fire, and some alleged favoritism in timber sales), the confidence or liking of the Forest Service was at a rather low ebb. So that involved meeting with the people and many other things...We put programs in the schools so that I believe there wasn't a grade in the grade school or high school level that wasn't in touch with some forest officer during the year, anywhere from tree planting we hired weekend high school students for weekend tree planting. We adjusted our work week to to do this, to get them acquainted with the Forest Service. We took field trips, movies, show me's, and discussion with all the grades and had real good success. We were pretty well known and liked for the effort. [7]

David R. Gibney succeeded Aufderheide as Supervisor on May 3, 1959. Gibney graduated in forestry from the University of Minnesota in 1933. He first worked for the CCC as technical foreman, junior forester, and camp superintendent in Region 9, Minnesota. In December, 1941, when the Chippewa CCC was disbanded, he went to work for the Corps of Engineers. The Forest Service applied for his release from the Corps due to the need for foresters in the war effort, and he returned to the Forest Service in late 1943. Region 6 applied to Region 9 for the transfer of foresters to aid in wartime timber sale efforts, and he came to Region 6 in 1945. He served in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest as timber sales officer and later as ranger in the Packwood Ranger District. He was transferred to the Siuslaw National Forest in 1952, serving on the timber management staff. In 1954, he went to the Regional Office, working in timber management, and serving as head of the timber sale layout and valuation section until he was reassigned to the Willamette as Forest Supervisor, where he served until his retirement August 1, 1970. [8]

Gibney was a wilderness lover, relaxing from the stresses of office with horseback trips into such areas as the Goat Rocks Wilderness in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Skilled and tireless at negotiating, he was equally at home in the woods, working out with the woods boss a difficult problem in cutting practices, or in the office working on scenic or environmental problems on a dam project. He was interested in people as well as resources, carrying the message of the Service to the people in a series of well-planned speeches, planning "show-me" trips to problem areas, and implementing the visitor information service. He brought these traits to the Supervisor's Office at a time of stress, marking the transition from an era of intensive management to one of confrontation and conflict. [9]

A series of administrative changes in the ranger district organization occurred during this period. At the south end of the Forest, the Rigdon Ranger District was set up in 1947, carved from the southern part of the Oakridge District. The western part of the McKenzie District was set aside as the Blue River Ranger District in 1956, and West Boundary had its name changed to Lowell in 1953. In the Salt Creek and Mill Creek drainages, the Salt Creek Ranger District was set up in 1959, but was disbanded in 1962. In the north, Mill City was set up as a separate ranger district in 1959. In 1968, it was consolidated again with Detroit. Also, the names of two ranger districts were changed to be more reflective of the town or city where the district was relocated. Thus, the West Boundary RD became the Lowell RD in 1953 and the Cascadia RD became Sweet Home RD in 1963. [10]

The basic philosophy behind the small districts was the fact that the large districts, such as McKenzie Bridge, had, in Edward Anderson's words, "3,300 man hours of non-delegatable district ranger work...and at best when a ranger worked full time, took his leave, etc., he got in 1,800 hours...add the fact that the Supervisor expected 75-80 percent of your time in the field, which meant all your office work had to be done nights, Saturdays, and Sundays. Then there was the feeling about that time that the district should be small enough so the ranger was personally acquainted, on a first name basis, with every rancher, farmer, logger, tree, coyote, deer, elk, or whatever was on the district, another impossible situation." However, other problems developed. Anderson wrote, "one of them was, as time went on it developed that the idea of small districts was great, except you started classifying and you were lucky to get a district ranger who was a GS-7, and that was against all wishes of everybody so the small-district philosophy gradually faded into the past." [11]

Other administrative units were established. The McSweeney-McNary Act of 1928 had established 11 geographical areas in the United States, with a Forest and Range Experiment Station for each. Research began to shift from field research to the laboratory, and Congress provided funding for laboratory construction. In 1962, the Forest and Range Experiment Station built such a laboratory at Corvallis, working closely with the forestry department of Oregon State University. The 14,490-acre Blue River Experimental Forest—renamed as the Horace J. Andrews Experimental Forest in 1953—served as a demonstration forest for the regional station at Corvallis. [12]

Meantime, the boundaries were tightened up. One, the largest land exchange in the history of the Forest Service, involved 11,000 acres in checkerboard pattern in the Rigdon Ranger District owned by Pope and Talbot. It eliminated 83 miles of boundary line, and gave the Willamette NF valuable recreational land abutting reservoirs. Another involved a 4,353-acre exchange with the Giustina Brothers Lumber Company in a tract near Blue River reservoir. In the Sweet Home District, about 8,000 acres were exchanged with the Hill interests. These exchanges eliminated many miles of boundary, disposed of tracts that had no public access, and in general made for a more efficient management. Another exchange was made with the Murphy Lumber Company, which owned some land in the Columbia Gorge. They exchanged 310 acres in the gorge for 322 acres near Oakridge. The exchange protected some scenic values in the gorge and provided a good boundary adjustment in the Willamette National Forest. The major exchanges were made in 1967-1968, but negotiations over boundaries had in most instances taken many years to complete. [13]

Three other aspects of administration deserve attention. First, there was a vast increase in the number of people employed on a year round basis. The Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960 required detailed analyses of the forest resources. Preparation of multiple-use atlases for each district required painstaking study by experts in all fields—forest, grazing, water resources, mining, and recreation. The services of the Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station were called upon, as well as those from the division of personnel from the Regional Office. However, increasingly, the Willamette National Forest hired its own experts. It was in a position to do so. The G.I. Bill for World War II veterans had produced a large group of highly qualified forest school graduates, and the favorable balance of receipts over expenditures in the Willamette National Forest placed it in a favored position for appropriations.

Second, was the aid of technology in meeting the tasks of the foresters. These included, in the office, computers to handle the vast amount of data; in interpretation, elaborate audio-visual programs, and a flood of published brochures; in fire fighting, sophisticated equipment to supplement the traditional axe/Pulaski/shovel of an earlier period; in transportation, four-wheel-drive vehicles, planes, and helicopters.

A third factor was that, though the basic goals of the forest were those of multiple-use, there was an increase in special managed lands. This included wilderness, wild, and research natural areas, totalling 250,000 acres in 1962, and 258,914 in 1968—about one-sixth of the total Willamette NF area. [14]

MINING AND GRAZING

Mining underwent some major changes in the Willamette National Forest during the post-war period. National need for minerals led to a revival of mining activity, particularly in the Hewitt interests on the Little North Fork of the Santiam River, and in some other areas. But post-war legislation led to a new era of controversies.

To recapitulate: Mining laws until 1955 allowed the taking up of claims secured by annual assessment work, or patented by payment, and permitted use of the claims surface non-mineral resources—grass, soil, and timber—so long as such use was needed for the actual operation of the claim. During the war, the assessment was not required, on the grounds that many prospectors were called to the armed services, and could not do the work on their claims. The lax laws led to many abuses, summarized by Christopher Granger in an article in the Journal of Forestry. Granger pointed out that many patented claims had never produced minerals, and were used for other purposes, especially summer homes. Less than 15 percent of the patented claims on the national forests produced minerals in commercial quantities, and less than three percent of the unpatented claims were productive. In Washington and Oregon of 5,988 claims recorded, covering 184,673 acres, only three were producing mineral. The claims had 1,945,842 board feet of timber on them, worth, by 1949 figures, $13,246,060. Pumice claims in Washington and Oregon covered large timber holdings, and blocked access roads, through the refusal of claimants to give rights-of-way. Granger urged several channels of reform: A system of miner lease rather than ownership; granting title only to the mineral rights, with timber cutting under Forest Service regulation, and only for use on the claim; title of the claim to be renewed every five years, and locations recorded at Federal law offices. [15]

Some spectacular scandals occurred in southern Oregon and elsewhere involving pumice claims used as a blind for stealing timber, and as a result, a thorough revision of the 1872 law was passed in 1955. It reaffirmed a Mineral Deposits Act of 1947, taking pumice, cinders, and pumicate from the operation of mining laws, and providing for their mining under regulations of the Department of the Interior. Timber cutting, on a claim within the national forest, was to be carried on under Forest Service regulations. The Forest Service could dispose of the timber and other surface values on the claims. In other words, the title of the claimant was only to the mineral and not to anything else. It also provided that all titles be registered with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM); previously, records of claims had been scattered in state and county record files all over the country. [16]

During 1960-1961, the Willamette National Forest staff set to work by ground and air survey, to examine the status of the mines, to determine which claims were worked and seemed to be valid, and which were abandoned or invalid. Claims patented before 1955 were examined for their validity. On those which had not passed to patent, the Forest Service began management of their surface resources. On those of questionable validity, either due to lack of assessment work or lack of a sufficient mineral discovery, it challenged the validity of the claims. After public notice in the newspapers, claimants were given 150 days to assert their rights to surface material. Hearings were before the BLM.

A fair number of claims were invalidated or judged abandoned. The major problems regarding mining came, as might be expected, from the Little North Fork area of the Santiam. (For background see Chapter III). Examiners found that of 216 claims, 199 were of questionable validity, and called for hearings on them. These included some of the old claims, and others patented in 1955 and 1957.

The problems regarding the road to the Hewitt claim remained, and remain, unsolved. As already noted, the mining claimants, of which James Hewitt was the kingpin, considered the road to be private, and there had been a great deal of pulling and hauling over the right-of-way for Forest Service vehicles. In 1939 the Secretary of Agriculture declared it to be a public road, and some CCC work was done on it. The company, however, placed a gate across the road, giving the Forest Service a key allowing them access, but denying public access. In 1945, the Forest Service acquired a formal right-of-way, but this had a time limit and expired. The government did not seek a renewal, since the right-of-way had many stipulations that the government thought burdensome.

In 1960, the Service began examination of the claims in the area. Hewitt offered a deal which involved a right-of-way across the claims, and a waiver of surface rights in return for validating the claims. However, the Service had no authority to make such a deal, and the matter remains unsolved. [17]

A second controversy arose over pumice claims on Rock Mesa on the border of the Deschutes and Willamette National Forests just east of South Sister. The issue arose in 1961, when Sheldon T. Clay and seven others filed on 11 claims, totalling 1,460 acres, on a pumice deposit in the Three Sisters Wilderness. These claims were conveyed to U.S. Pumice in 1961. The Forest Service felt that such an operation was incompatible with wilderness status. After examination, the Regional Forester issued a statement to that effect to the Bureau of Land Management, which had jurisdiction over mining claims. The BLM supported the Forest Service, asserting that the claims were improperly filed and could not be justified as a valid discovery. First, the BLM asserted, the claims were on unsurveyed land, and therefore could not be described by legal subdivisions. Second, when the location notices were filed in 1963, the description was faulty; and third, because the claims were described as placer claims, they should have been limited to a total of 20 acres per claim. Also, the BLM asserted that three of the ten claims were non-mineral in nature, and only part of the other claims were mineral. The validity of these claims, and their final disposition, would have to wait for another two decades. [18]

Grazing, formerly the dominant activity in the high country of the forest, had a precipitate decline. From the thousands of sheep and dozens of grazing permits in the forest as late as the 1930s, the number shrank to 268 head of horses and cattle and a dozen permittees in 1957, and 290 head with 11 permittees in 1961. The last sheep grazed in the forest were in 1947. The decline was caused partly by the reforestation of the mountain meadows and the extension of restricted areas, and partly by changes in the management practices of the sheep raising industry.

However, as the high country was used increasingly for pack trips, and with wilderness classification for large areas, restrictions were established on grazing of pack and saddle stock. Some areas had become overgrazed; in others, there was need to keep the stock from areas used for camping, and from streams and lakes. These restrictions were part of the management plans of the Mount Jefferson and Three Sisters Wildernesses and in the Waldo Lake area. Experiments were made in seeding alpine meadows, and packers were notified of areas in which it would be necessary to pack their own horse feed.

With the decline of commercial grazing, there was a shift in emphasis toward examining the relationships of grazing land and forest land for wildlife habitat. Much of the work of grazing examiners was replaced, or supplemented by that of wildlife biologists. [19]

WILDLIFE

Major shifts also occurred in regard to the forest and wildlife in the period 1945-1970. Nationally, scholarship and research had brought about a change from protecting game by means of refuges, extermination of predators, and bag limits, to new methods. These included study of game habitat as a means of determining the carrying capacity of management units, study of how the habitats could be enhanced, and studies in predator-prey relationships. Such research had been going on for some time, but reaching conclusive results in any research takes years and even decades. By the late 1930s, however, studies by scholars such as Aldo Leopold and Durward Allen were bearing fruit. The rush of students taking advantage of post-war G.I. Bill helped to produce many scholars in the field of wildlife management, and schools of forestry increasingly added optional courses in wildlife management to their majors. In the Forest Service, the Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station began its own wildlife studies. [20]

Within the Willamette National Forest, management had previously involved stocking streams and lakes, enforcing game laws, observing game behavior, and keeping simple statistics on the observed game and predators. With the passage of the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960, wildlife were to an equal basis with other forest uses, especially timber management, and the Service included big game management in its multiple-use plans.

Management involved cooperation between the State of Oregon and the Forest Service, since fish and game resources were under jurisdiction of the Oregon Game Commission. The Forest Service managed the habitat, the state the game. The relationship needed to be formalized, and in 1955, a cooperative agreement was made between the Forest Service and the Game Commission, which was revised and updated during the 1960s. The Forest Service agreed to aid the Commission in enforcing fish and game laws, giving them facilities for work, making wildlife inventories, and helping the Commission in its management. For its part, the Commission agreed to share facilities with the Forest Service, to ask Forest Service permission to introduce exotic species and to use poison against predators, to advise the Service of changes in policy, and to give the Service annual reports. The Forest Service also worked closely with other Federal agencies concerned with wildlife, with the University of Oregon, and with national and local wildlife groups.

There was major progress in wildlife habitat management for deer and elk in the post-war period. The number of predators declined, much it due to natural fluctuations in populations and bounties paid by the State of Oregon and various counties. Hunting activity increased, but not in proportion to the higher population increases. With the building of trans-Cascade highways, a larger percentage of hunters crossed to the east side of the mountains, where the forest areas were open and the climate drier, rather than hunting in the dense, rainy forests on the west. On the west side there was an increase in the amount of favorable habitat, thus an increase in the number of deer and elk, such that the carrying capacity of the game ranges was increased. Poaching remained a problem, but lessened with general prosperity, since fewer families had to kill game for table meat.

The objective of habitat management, in the Forest Service multiple-use plans, was to maintain wildlife at optimum levels, linking timber harvest with forage production, especially for winter range. The game animals should be harvested to keep their population at optimum levels, with special hunts if needed to reduce the population to the carrying capacity of the winter range areas. Habitat management for big game was assumed to take account of the needs of small game birds and other species. The Forest Service division of information and education should work to develop plans for interpretation of wildlife conservation, and work closely with the Izaak Walton League and the Oregon Wildlife Federation. Browse species and grass was planted on the edges of harvest units and along skid roads. The value of power line openings was studied, both as a source for Christmas trees and as a place to plant browse and grass for game and birds. Snags, usually felled, were to be left standing as nesting sites in areas of low fire hazard.

In regard to fishing, the stocking of streams and alpine lakes continued. Buffer strips were to be preserved to protect stream temperatures, and nest trees near streams getting special attention. Fishing was protected by prohibiting the felling of trees into streams, and yarding across streams; by removing debris from streams; providing for drainage of skid and spur roads; and replanting of exposed areas of mineral soil. Special care was taken to protect nest trees of eagles and osprey. This same type of management was also to be carried out around reservoirs. On lakes, wherever both water skiing and fishing were sports, the lake waters were zoned, so one group would not interfere with the other's enjoyment. Motor boats were limited in number, or totally eliminated from some lakes. [21]

During the 1930s the elk population was about 270; by 1970 it was 5,000. Deer population during the same time went up from about 4,500 to 47,000. The methods of timber harvest tended to favor such increases. Areas opened by logging and site preparation yield extensive amounts of grasses and browse, which the big game animals thrive on. Natural fire had formerly made the openings, and now timber cutting took its place. Some areas, such as the divide between the North and Middle Forks of the Willamette, which were favored by elk, were reseeded with rye grass. In areas where deer injured seedling conifers, chemicals to render the browse unpalatable were experimented with. [22] Older second growth Douglas-fir forests, with their dense canopies, tend to have shade tolerant types of browse only with low nutrient value. The mature timber provides important shade in the hot summer months and protection during the critical winter months. The old growth habitat tends to provide a mixture of shade and protection, as well as spots of grasses and browse. The particular values of old growth for wildlife habitat, including big game and other species, have become a much argued about factor in current management. [23]

DEVELOPMENTS/CHANGES

There were a series of dramatic changes on the face of the forest between 1945 and 1970. Dams were built for flood control, hydroelectric power, and water storage on the Santiam, Willamette, and McKenzie Rivers. A network of roads linked all parts of the forest; and there was a major building program for Forest Service personnel and for recreationists.

Beginning in the later 1940s, the controversial Beaver Marsh Dam was proposed by the Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB) to dam Clear Lake and divert the upper McKenzie River water to another dam and power plant at Beaver Marsh. The project caused great concern among the upper McKenzie residents and citizens of Eugene. A number of groups formed to battle the project, including the Save the McKenzie River Association, McKenzie River Protection and Development Association, National Parks Association, Federation of Western Outdoor Clubs, Izaak Walton League, and the Seattle Audubon Society. (Several of these groups would be involved with Willamette NF management in the coming years.) After many court battles, the Beaver Marsh Dam project was put to a special Eugene election on March 27, 1956, where the proposal was turned down by the voters. After the election, EWEB proposed an alternative hydro-electric project called the Carmen-Smith Project, which covered some of the same area as the Beaver Marsh project.

The Willamette NF had an impact in planning the Carmen-Smith Project, which consists of Carmen Dam and Diversion Tunnel, Smith River Dam, and Trail Bridge Dam. The EWEB originally planned a dam and diversion canal, a power house, and a fish channel just to the south of Sahalie Falls. The initial plan for the canal was for it to be about three miles long to carry water from the upper reservoir, the Carmen, to the lower one, the Smith Reservoir. The opposition groups argued that such a canal would not be in keeping with the wild character of the country, and Supervisor Gibney was able to have the diversion unit made a tunnel. Construction work began on the project in 1960 and it was completed in 1963. [24]

The 1950s and 1960s saw several other dams begun and completed. The Detroit Dam was the earliest, begun in 1953; this was followed by the Lookout Point Dam and Dexter Reregulating Dam, begun in 1954. Construction started on Cougar Dam in 1956; Blue River and Saddle Dams in 1960; and Hills Creek Dam in 1962. These were all Corps of Engineers projects.

Just to the west of the Willamette, the Foster Dam (Middle and South Santiam Rivers) and Green Peter Dam (Middle Santiam River) were constructed. There were, in addition, a large number of dams proposed, but not built, and a re-regulating dam below Cougar (to be called Strube Dam) which has been authorized, but funding has not been approved by Congress. There were public hearings on all these dams, and a large number of controversies concerning the effect of the dams on wildlife and fish runs, erosion control, and the like. Analysis of these matters is properly a study of Corps of Engineers history, so this tempting bi-way must be passed over. [25]

The dams created new tasks for the Forest Service. They meant timber sales to remove trees in the areas to be inundated; clearing up slash on these sales; relocation of campgrounds, roads, and ranger stations; and preservation of recreational values in the vicinity of the reservoirs, together with the development of erosion control and timber harvest. They also meant the task of developing programs for water-based recreation in the forests.

One other dam deserves attention; this involved repairing a historic dam rather then constructing a new one. In 1908 and in 1909, permits were granted to Amos R. Black for a power and irrigation project, involving a dam and tunnel at Waldo Lake. In 1914 a dam/headgate, 30 feet high and 40 feet across, and 500-foot long, seven feet high and ten feet wide, tunnel through a narrow ridge, were completed by Simon Klovdahl. The power project, however, was never activated. In the early 1930's, the Waldo Lake Irrigation and Power Company proposed developing the lake for extensive power production involving four power plant sites and miles of diversion canals. In 1933, the Federal Power Commission denied their request and the following year the Forest Service terminated their special-use permit.

In the course of time, during the mid-1950s, the Willamette National Forest discovered a large number of holes in the 40-year old dam. There was some fear that it might be drained below its normal outlet and that fish spawning beds might be destroyed. In the normal course of events, the Forest Service would have constructed a road into the area and brought in the equipment needed to do the job. However, Waldo Lake was classified since 1946 as a limited area—which meant to withhold major developments until the final status of the area was decided (wilderness or multiple-use). In spite of the restrictions, the job was finished in 1960 by an unusual combination of modern technology and primitive methods. Two Forest Service employees who were skindivers, Mo McAdams and Ed Stout, probed around the base of the dam, determining its location and size. Finally, they barged timber across the lake from the east side, and built forms for a new face on the dam. The work was carried to a successful conclusion. [26]

Some dams made it necessary to relocate two ranger stations. The Detroit Ranger Station, formerly located in the area now covered by the Detroit Reservoir, was relocated in 1952 to higher ground to the north of the highway. The West Boundary Ranger Station was in the area covered by the Lookout Point Dam Reservoir, and it was relocated to Lowell in 1953. Extensive relocations of highways and timber access roads were necessary in the vicinity of the new Blue River, Cougar, Detroit, Hills Creek, and Lookout Point Reservoirs.

Dams brought about a flood of other management problems. Relocation of roads near reservoirs to replace old roads in inundated areas, or to give access to water-based recreational facilities, meant many new engineering problems. New practices near reservoirs or streams were adopted. These included small, staggered timber sales, ensuring reproduction in logged areas, and careful location of roads, bridges, and culverts. New campgrounds had to be located at Detroit, the South Fork of the McKenzie, and at Hills Creek; and recreational planning had to take account of boat launching sites and marinas. Boats were acquired in order to do maintenance work on the reservoirs, such as clearing debris and salvaging logs. Routes for power lines were cleared, and plans for using such cleared areas for Christmas tree harvest and wildlife habitat were studied. Log jams and debris were cleared from river beds in a large number of small salvage sales. [27]

The Columbus Day storm ("blowdown") in 1962 caused major problems. The big storm downed an estimated 140 million board feet of timber, caused many log jams on the rivers, which led to numerous sales to salvage the timber before it was attacked by beetles. This was followed by the Christmas week flood of 1964 when torrential rains and floods hit most of the Northwest forests, but the Willamette suffered the most damage. Six campgrounds were totally destroyed, and seven severely damaged; roads suffered slides and washouts, and many bridges and culverts were destroyed. The flood control reservoirs at Detroit, Hills Creek, and Lookout Point were covered with floating logs and debris from the storm. An area of 40 acres at the Lookout Point Reservoir and 230 acres at Detroit were floating with storm debris. Much of the timber was salvaged, but it was months before the roads and campgrounds could be restored. [28]

Road building during this period increased. The Willamette NF reported 950 miles of road in 1954; this had increased to 3,784 in 1972. Some 200 miles of roads were Federal and state highways—US 126, Oregon 20, 22, 58, and 242. Most of the forest roads gave access to timber sales, but a number of them were primarily for recreation. The traditional method of preserving roadside scenic or visual corridors, a roadside strip of uncut timber between the road and timber harvest or borrow pits, was continued, and added to this were scenic outlooks and waysides. Along Aufderheide Drive (Forest Road 19), which connects Oakridge and the Willamette Highway with Blue River and the McKenzie Highway, a series of roadside interpretive signs were put up, showing reforestation after the railroad logging of the North Fork of the Willamette area, as well as historic and commemorative features at Box Canyon. [29]

The era 1945-1970 saw a major program for the Forest Service administrative buildings. The last of the ranger stations built by the CCC was replaced by 1966. An increase in the number of permanent employees, as well as the huge summer swell of temporary employees, meant that new office space was needed at every ranger station. In addition, the Forest Service was undergoing a transition to computers and comprehensive mapping and resource inventory systems that needed a considerable amount of office space. Gone were the days when inventories were kept in the ranger's head or in the daily diary. In addition, the Willamette needed a large array of trucks, tractors, tankers, and road equipment to administer the developments on the ranger district. This meant that more garages and storage sheds were needed. In some districts the whole complex of old buildings had to be replaced due to dams flooding the site (in the case of the West Boundary RS) or more convenient location (in the case of Cascadia RS). [30]

FOREST RESEARCH

Research during this period underwent some fundamental changes. One major shift in emphasis was the study of the relationship of people to the out-of-doors. This included anti-litter campaigns, study of patterns of outdoor recreation, and examining the social aspects of camping. By 1971, the research station had a staff of 149, devoted to work on 38 separate proposals; and the number of natural areas devoted to research in the Region had risen to 42.

Research became decentralized. A series of research centers were established at Corvallis, Olympia, La Grande, and Roseburg. As has been mentioned, in 1948 saw the establishment of the Blue River Experimental Forest (renamed as the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest on July 26, 1953, to honor the memory of deceased Regional Forester Horace J. Andrews). The "Andrews" was used initially to study optimum methods of harvesting Douglas-fir. This involved experimenting with clearcuts to determine the optimum size, partial cutting, and studying the respective advantages of artificial versus natural regeneration. In 1949, a harvest of 10 million board feet was made, with studies of the size of optimum clearcuts, road building, and siltation, in other areas, the centers studied the use of various chemicals in brush control; the use of fire retardants; how best to handle flood damage after the floods of 1948 and 1964; and utilization projects to determine methods for using waste for fiberboard and pulp. Cull lumber, the type with white fungus specks, was found to be suitable for making plywood. During the 1960s, the Andrews research emphasis shifted to studies of watershed and the effects of logging on water quality and quantity. Studies were made of insect control, particularly the beetle and tussock moth. Beginning in 1969, when the Andrews was selected as one of the intensive study sites of the Coniferous Forest Biome Project of the International Biological Program (IBP), emphasis again shifted to studies about the plant-environment relationships. [31]

In the Willamette National Forest, research focused on timber management and wildlife. A large plantation was set up near Westfir, and in 1961 a 20-acre plot, the Heather Tree Orchard, was established there. This unit was for experiments in forest genetics in order to identify and perpetuate rapid growing trees through transplants of root stock. Studies of natural restocking and the need for planting were carried on in clearcuts. By 1954, foresters came to the conclusion that natural restocking would occur up to 500 feet from the green strips in clearcuts of less than 50 acres, with the exception of south slopes. In addition, extensive tree planting activities were made at the orchard. Aerial spraying of insecticides was carried on for the spruce budworm and the lodgepole sawfly. Much work was done with the Oregon State Game Commission and the USDI Fish and Wildlife personnel. In the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, the research division of the State Game Commission carried on studies of game utilization of forage in the clearcuts, changing deer and elk populations, and animal damage to forest reproduction. Several study plots and enclosures were established in the Lowell and McKenzie Bridge Ranger Districts. [32]

Several research natural areas (RNA) were set aside in the forest during this time. The first RNA to be established was the Olallie Ridge RNA in 1963. This two-unit 720-acre RNA, at the summits of Horsepasture and O'Leary Mountains, was chosen to represent mountain meadow and true fir-mountain hemlock communities prevalent on high ridges in the Western Cascades. (Olallie Ridge RNA will again be mentioned later in another connection—that dealing with the French Pete controversy.) The Gold Lake Bog, 463 acres, was established in 1965. This area was chosen to preserve some prime subalpine bogs along the eastern edge of Gold Lake. The Wildcat Mountain RNA was set aside between Blue River and Sweet Home on March 18, 1968. This tract of 1,000 acres had the largest stand of old-growth noble fir in Oregon. [33]

The necessity for planting was dependent on how effectively natural reseeding worked out. Studies made in 1960 showed that 36 percent of clearcut areas did not restock satisfactorily after seven and a half years. The aim of the forest was to have such restocking within five years from the cutting. There were enormous variations on the individual sales, depending on weather, soil, whether or not there had been good seed years, and the like. Through the use of Knutson Vandenburg (KV) funds, an extensive planting program was undertaken, especially the the North Fork of the Willamette area. Seedlings were grown in the Wind River Nursery, Carson, Washington. When the seedlings were two years old, they were shipped to be planted. There was a great deal of community effort in the tree planting, with Boy Scouts, 4-H Clubs, and schools participating. [34]

TIMBER HARVEST—Cutting Practices

Changes in cutting practices developed during the period 1945-1970. Initially, clearcutting with seed trees left standing was common in the Douglas-fir forests of the Pacific Northwest. However, the seed tree system left something to be desired, since single seed trees, or small groves were subject to windthrow during the strong winter gales. An era of selective cutting was inaugurated during the term of C.J. Buck as Regional Forester, but it proved unsatisfactory. After Buck's term had ended in 1939, clearcutting was resumed. [35]

The advent of extensive truck and tractor logging operations after World War II also brought about smaller clearcut units, rather than the huge clearcut logging operations common to railroad logging. These smaller timber sales permitted sales to small operators, who could afford to log with only a relatively small investment in equipment. Tracts of timber not large enough to justify building an expensive logging railroad could be opened up. Truck and tractor logging were however not adaptable for use on steep hillsides and rough terrain. These tough areas needed special equipment and practices to be fully harvestable. High-lead logging, balloon, and helicopter logging methods were tested, improved, and utilized on the forest.

Much of the timber on the Willamette was old-growth and mature stands of Douglas-fir. These stands were relatively stagnant, losing many board feet per year to windthrow, disease, and decay. The major losses were in the most valuable trees, the "yellow fir" that produced clear lumber and plywood. The aim of the foresters was to replace the old forests with new—to convert the old-growth stands to new growth, to utilize old trees, and to harvest trees likely to be windthrown. Ideally, the logging activities would bypass growing parts of the forest to harvest mature stands; extend the transportation system so diseased, insect killed, and windfall timber could be harvested, and young stands thinned; avoid large areas of slash accumulation; and leave large areas of the forest in reserve to assure reproduction, protect watershed and game habitat, and protect amenity values and recreation areas. The ideal logging system would be one to convert a tract from a virgin timber basis to a vigorous second growth basis in about 100 years—the number of years needed to produce a mature timber stand.

What developed was area selections; also variously known as patch cutting, logging by staggered settings, or clearcutting in small blocks. The principle was to clearcut small areas and leave reserve or seed strips surrounding the cut areas. Enough light could get into the clearing to encourage reseeding, particularly Douglas-fir seedlings, over other species. Area selection made for less hazard, encouraged salvage sales, created a good big game habitat, and did minimum damage to watershed.

All this involved a close association among engineers, foresters, and scientists. Roads were laid out so that the areas bypassed by the initial cut could be harvested after the reforestation of the area. Essentially, this meant planning road systems that could be used 20 or 40 years hence, for making a second cut, and for interim salvage sales. The ideal in the Willamette National Forest was to keep cruising, mapping, and road location at least five years ahead of logging operations. The right size for cutting patches was learned by trial and error. Sale areas of 100 or 200 acres were laid out. These areas did not reseed completely. By 1949, clearcuts were limited to 40 to 100 acres each, with no cutover areas less than 1,000 feet from the green timber. As elsewhere noted, planting programs were carried on with the aid of Knutson-Vandenburg funds. [36]

There was a major miscalculation in adopting these cutting practices. This was failure to ascertain the visual impact of the clearcuts. As has been noted, the Forest Service early adopted a system of screening the more unsightly uses of the forest, like logging or operation of gravel pits, from the public. This took the form of having buffer strips, usually 200 feet wide, between the operations and the road, so the visitor could not see the logging operation, and the forest had the appearance of being unbroken. The roadside screen worked well into the 1940s. Then logging began in the hills and mountains, and the operations could be observed from roads and residences along the way; or, in Alaska, from vessels plying the Inside Passage. Americans grew up with a rectangular system of survey, and the squares or oblongs along the mountain sides, "like diapers on a line" offended the aesthetic senses of many people.

Further factors were the increased urbanization and mobility of people. Oregonians who had lived in rural surrounding were familiar with nature's rapid self-renewal, and could look forward to the regrowth of the forest. Urbanites, seasonal residents, and visitors did not recognize this fact, and tended to equate clearcuts with strip mining. The Sierra Club and other environmental exploited this ignorance in numerous publications, suits, and other attacks. Clearcuts had a very bad press, especially after 1960. In the Willamette National Forest, these attacks were particularly strong from residents of the upper McKenzie River. There had been a drift of city dwellers to this area, who bought summer homes, as well as an influx of Californians, who carried the preservation philosophy with them, creating a rift with the local residents who depended on the forest for their livelihood. [37]

By 1969, the Forest Service began to modify its clearcut program. This involved adapting the shape of the clearcuts to the terrain to form part of a scenic picture. Landscape architects were brought in to advise on shaping the cutting areas to conform to the natural land forms. In addition, the size and shapes of clearcuts were modified to lessen damage caused by winter gales. [38]

New techniques for timber harvest developed during this time were more efficient or less disturbing to the land. Studies were made of the relative efficiency and feasibility of tractor logging, in which the logs were pulled to a landing, and cable logging by the high-lead method, which involved aerial transportation of the logs to lessen timber damage and soil disturbances. The first had the virtue of flexibility; but it involved a great deal of road planning, with the possible creation of environmental damage. Rubber tired tractors were utilized for thinning in order to reduce the amount of soil compaction. In aerial logging, variations of the traditional network of cables were experimented with. Balloon logging, using blimps instead of spar trees, was tried as early as 1965. All methods worked well, but were vulnerable to storms. Helicopter logging also was experimented with. [39]

All this meant that timber sales had become a highly complex business. In the offices, economists and administrators studied timber inventories, reconciling allowable cut—the upper limit of annual cut for the forest or an area in the forest, which was a short-term economic and social problem with sustained-yield, the longer time span for the forest, which was primarily a scientific and biological problem. By the 1960s computers were brought in to assist in this work. In the field, engineers, foresters, wildlife experts, fish biologists, and landscape architects worked on cohesive plans with the foresters and engineers of lumber companies, and developed plans for slash disposal and fire prevention. The information office tried to keep the public informed.

In two important articles, Regional Forester Charles Connaughton, summed up the problem. In the article aptly titled "Forestry's Toughest Problem," Connaughton wrote, "The toughest problem facing the forestry profession today results from a major segment of the public not realizing commercial forest lands can be managed without destroying its utility and appearance. Consequently, much of the public lacks confidence in foresters as stewards of the land." Connaughton admonished the forestry profession to adopt management objectives and techniques "which result in acceptable conditions on the land that the public can and should be shown." The forester had to sense the attitudes of people, many of whom thought that the best use of the forest was no use. Multiple-use is generally more valuable than restrictive use. They should demonstrate that use of forests and preservation of natural beauty can be harmonized. "Management and protection of natural beauty is just as much a part of forestry as silviculture, fire protection or insect control." Forestry schools should be informed about public attitudes toward forest use, and research people should ally themselves with foresters in working out these problems. [40]

In 1970, he addressed himself specifically to the clearcutting problem. Attacks on clearcutting claimed that it was devastation, and asserted ill-defined environmental effects. Foresters felt that clearcutting was a sound tool in forest management. Foresters, as stewards of the forest, must submit their practices to public scrutiny, and adjust techniques. But in doing this, they were not to submit to pressure that would jeopardize the silvicultural foundations of forestry, or sound practices. There was need for aggressive explanations of practices. There was also need to use variability, not uniformity, in management; to allow land openings to coincide with nature, and cutting areas to blend with, not conflict with the terrain. Reconciling silviculture and aesthetics would be sound practice. [41]

FIRE CONTROL

Fire control underwent a major revolution in the period between 1945 and 1970. Historically, it marked the ending of the highly picturesque period between 1915 and 1945, when the important link between the ranger station and dispatcher's office and the fire area was the lookout-fireman. Using the Osborne firefinder, the lookout located the fire on the map and got one or more cross bearings. Often, laden with a 70-pound pack containing a Pulaski, portable radio, iron rations, and sleeping bag, the smoke chaser took off across country to attack the fire. Use of lookouts for detection was replaced by lookout points on roads, patrol planes, and helicopters. Road travel now was possible to most fires. In off-road areas, smokejumpers dropped to the fire, or helicopters brought in fire fighting crews. Lookouts were phased out, partly because other means of detection were more efficient, partly because of an increase in vandalism. From 42 lookouts in 1954, the number went down to 17 in 1966. A smokejumper base was established at Redmond, Oregon, to serve forests in the area. They provided planes for scouting and reconnaissance work, transport planes to fly in men and supplies, and helicopters. The forest had constructed 155 heliports by 1955. Bulldozers, jeeps, power wagons, tanker trucks, and pump trucks supplied attack forces from the ground, and crews of loggers and residents formed a strong "at need" group of fire fighters. There was a major decline in human caused fires.

The immediate post-war period was marked by a series of bad fire years. A combination of bad fire weather and a great deal of slash to burn led to a bad year in 1949 when two large fires of about 1,000 acres each occurred in the McKenzie drainage; 1951 also was a bad fire year, with the HeHe fire of 2,721 acres, and the Sardine of 4,371. Then came a series of years with few fires (see Appendix). Also 1958 was a bad fire year, with one lightning bust on August 4th causing 70 fires. The largest of these fires, in Canyon Creek, covered 1,025 acres. Smokejumpers, aircraft, helicopters, and tractors got on the fires. Jumpers made 38 jumps on 13 fires. Three helicopters got men and equipment into fire areas, and several hundred men were called on to do the ground work. Aircraft dropped 16,000 pounds of equipment, and 13,500 gallons of retardant were dropped on the fire.

All human efforts cannot prevent fires from spreading where conditions are bad, and 1967 was such a year. Fire blackened 14,965 acres, took the effort of 6,000 men to control, and cost $3.5 million. August was a dry month with no rain and with logging camps on hoot owl shifts. A lightning storm on August 10th started a total of 228 fires, which burned 558 acres, but were quickly controlled. On August 28th, lightning storms struck again, starting 111 fires affecting all but the Lowell and Rigdon Ranger Districts. The earlier fires had had the manpower and plane power to get on the job promptly; but other fires were raging in Washington and Oregon, and it was difficult to get the manpower needed. On August 29th, the Willamette National Forest was closed to entry because of the emergency, and not until after September 3rd were the fires brought under control. [42]

RECREATION—BACKGROUND

The period after 1945 was marked by major changes in American recreational habits. The population soared from 150 million in 1950 to 200 million in 1969. General prosperity and abundant leisure time led to more use of national and state parks and forests. In 1933, eight million people visited the national forests; in 1940 there were 20 million visitors. With a major change in man/acre relationship on wild lands, there came at the same time the development of equipment, devices, and sports that necessitated more space, and the need to set aside specialized areas for downhill skiing, cross country skiing, snowmobiling, travel by trail bikes and off-road vehicles, pack trains, backpacking, water skiing, whitewater boating, stream and lake fishing, and the like. This meant a need to develop more facilities for recreational groups enjoying the forests, which represented, numerically, the largest single series of groups. It also meant meeting the needs of the wilderness groups, who were the smallest numerically, but who demanded more land to meet their particular needs, and wanted this land off limits to other types of recreation.

There were changes also in the makeup of the American people. At the turn of the century, the majority of Americans were rural dwellers; by 1970, only three persons out of ten were rural dwellers. Freeways and highways made almost every national forest accessible with a minimum of inconvenience. From many people there was the demand in rural campsites for most of the programs like to those of the National Park Service. [43] The Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960 placed recreation on a par with other forest land uses, and the Forest Service began to develop its own team of recreation specialists. After a great deal of lobbying, the Wilderness Act was passed in 1964, which classified wilderness as a separate category. [44]

There were changes also in the nature and tactics of the conservation and environmental groups. Generally speaking, as has been noted, the Forest Service had worked well with such groups as the Mazamas, the Mountaineers, Obsidians, Chemeketans, and local outdoor or sportsmen's clubs. After 1950, some clubs expanded from regional to national status. The Sierra Club was the most notable of these. The club had been, in the past, mainly a regional organization, with headquarters in California, and having little interest in the Pacific Northwest. In the earlier years, its leadership consisted of businessmen from the San Francisco Bay area who were relatively moderate in their views. In 1952, however, David R. Brower became executive director and held the office until 1969 when he was forced to resign because of internal disagreements. Brower set to work to make the Sierra Club the national spokesman for outdoor matters. Its membership grew from 5,993 in 1947 to 72,000 in 1970. Brower was doctrinaire in his approaches regarding the Forest Service, the lumber industry, or, in fact, anyone who disagreed with him. His views appealed to the urban middle class, whose sole interest in the out-of-doors was recreational use; to young idealists, making up in zeal and enthusiasm what they lacked in knowledge; and to campus radicals, both faculty and students, who saw the interest in ecology as radical chic, combining, in Irwin Unger's words, "the irreproachable love of mother nature with just enough defiance of technology and capitalism to make it interesting."

A note on terminology is order. The old term "conservation" (invented in 1907 by Gifford Pinchot) and "conservationist" were defined as wise use of the land promoted by people who had no economic interest in the land—in other words, excluding the timberlot owner, the grazer, or the lumber company—with use of the land for the benefit of the many. The new term "environmentalist" came to mean an individual or group that promoted full protection—almost no use—of the land and resources. [45] The environmentalists tended to view conservation as those individuals and groups that promoted the "unwise" use of the land and resources—in other words any development that did not promote preservation. New environmental groups rapidly spread their influence, affecting the makeup and bending the positions of many older conservation groups in order to spread the messages of the Earth Day generation. [46]

The forest managers had their traditional tasks of upholding standards of administration within their areas of responsibility; of determining the wants and needs of the people; of carrying on research; and of explaining to the public their reasons for taking certain courses of action. In meeting these demands, the Forest Service had to adapt its interpretive program to new times. Several areas of oversight from earlier eras were corrected.

The National Park Service had adopted a visitor information service at an early time. The Forest Service did not introduce one until 1962. As early as 1931, Walter I. Hutchinson pointed out a weakness in this area. People involved in public relations worked with the Regional Forester, but had no meetings with their counterparts in other regions, and little supervision from the Washington Office. (This weakness has been mentioned previously in the failure of Region 5 and Region 6 to cooperate on the Pacific Crest Trail.) In addition, many foresters were not primarily public relations men; they liked to be out in the field, and though they worked well with stockmen, loggers, and lumbermen, they did not address the general public. In addition, Hutchinson wrote, "In early days, we preached tree conservation and the beauty of the forests instead of the practical and economic side of forestry. So today, when we cut timber, even under tried and true forestry conditions, the public in many localities sees only forest devastators." [47]

The Forest Service made a determined effort to catch up with its interpretive needs. The effort met with varied success in varied forests. An instructive parallel can be made between the Tongass National Forest, Alaska, and the Willamette. In Alaska the visitor information service (VIS) was headed by a former National Park Service interpreter, D. Robert Hakala. All the visitors to southeastern Alaska came by boat, mostly cruise ships; so Hakala developed a shipboard interpretive program, which had spectacular success. Most of the Alaskans in the area at the time were people who lived off the land, and were well acquainted with Forest Service policies; so when the Sierra Club introduced a program of misrepresentation of the Forest Service, it was met with a "Sierra Club, Go Home" response. [48] In the Willamette, Supervisor Gibney brought in new specialists to interpret the forest to visitors; visitor centers were set up, and Gibney and his associates made speeches on many aspects of forest management to all kinds of audiences. However, a sizeable part of the population and visitors were urbanites who came into the forest by a variety of routes; campus radicals presented a special problem; and the Sierra Club succeeded in polarizing opinion.

The years 1945-1970 were marked by two trends in recreation management. One was development of a series of controversies with individuals or groups at the regional or national level. Accompanying these was a steady, quiet, and efficient development of recreational programs and facilities of all types. In this account, we will deal first with the controversies.

CHANGING PATTERNS IN RECREATION—McCREDIE SPRINGS

This period marked the end of a long and controversial time in the history of McCredie Springs. The period from the 1930s to the 1960s was an interesting one, and can best be studied as a whole. Hot and mineral springs had played an important part in the recreational development of the Willamette National Forest. They became less important during the 1930s and after World War II. The old leisurely pattern of recreation, in which the people moved to gracious hotels for a week or a month, tended to disappear with the building of roads and the popularity of the automobile. People tended to be on the move, and motels catered increasingly to the transient visitors. Some resorts, like Breitenbush and Belknap, continued operation; others, like Foley, went out of business. In addition, the hot springs on national forest land, where resort owners had their facilities on lease, were in danger of having the sites considered by the Forest Service to be more valuable for public camp sites than for private profit.

McCredie Springs, as was previously noted, had been operated as a resort off and on since 1914. It had had a series of difficulties with the Forest Service—on the part of the Service in reconciling roadside zoning with the wishes of the lessees, and on the part of the lessees by controversies over signs, facilities, and activities to be carried on. During the 1930s, however, there developed for a time a plan to use the springs for a social experiment, similar to the model village plan developed in nearby Westfir and Oakridge.

Warm Springs, Georgia, had attracted national attention when President Roosevelt used it as a vacation spot and a place to treat his polio. Why not have a Warm Springs for similar purposes in Oregon? An Oregon Warm Springs Foundation was established; Eugene doctors endorsed the idea; the Register-Guard gave the project extensive publicity; and the state administrator for WPA stated his approval of using WPA labor to build such a facility. Supervisor Thompson was attracted by the idea. In 1938 he wrote to the Regional Forester that he had applied to the WPA for a million dollars. $250,000 would be used to clear and landscape the ground, leaving a 200 foot scenic strip between the road and the buildings. He suggested building a hospital and resort and developing power from the waters of Salt Creek. Regional Forester C.J. Buck replied to Thompson, January 20, 1938, asking him to give the project the highest priority. Congressional support came from Senator McNary. Meantime, Buck wrote to H.B. Hammon of the State Public Health Service about the project. Hammon answered, after an examination, raising questions about sanitation and sewage. The plan, like the model village plan was dropped, probably because after 1938 a high priority was given to defense preparation.

In 1946, the springs were held on a 20-year lease by Edwin L. Whistler. The resort was not well managed. As George Owen wrote in a letter to the Forest Service Chief Ed Cliff, December 26, 1962:

For instance, nearly all those who operated the resort before us were poor risks indeed. One was an ex-convict with a very bad reputation, others were alright [sic], but had no money and could do nothing to make the place a recreational asset; and the operator before us was the most impossible person we have ever known. She sold liquor to minors, one teenager was killed, another maimed for life in a car accident while intoxicated on McCredie Springs liquor while returning to Oakridge. She ran a house of ill-repute and after we came, again and again, men came there asking my wife for girls, not knowing it had changed hands. She had three crews, one working, one coming, and one going, and borrowed money and obtained credit at Oakridge, Eugene, Springfield, everywhere, and would only laugh at her creditors. She was taken to jail and was headed for jail many, many times, but always managed to borrow bail money and was as slippery as an eel at evading the law. The Deputy Sheriff at Oakridge said again and again that she alone caused his office more trouble than the entire population of Oakridge and Westfir with fringe areas put together, some eight to ten thousand people.

All these facts are well known to Forest Service officials here who, according to the terms of the lease could have and as a duty to the public should have closed her up. But she had guns and boasted she knew how to use them and rumor believed by all, of how she had boasted of killing a man in California and got away with it, and Forest Service officials there, it seemed, preferred to stay healthy.

In 1950 George Owen, lumberman and philanthropist, took over the lease, though the transaction was not completed until 1959. Owen found himself beset with problems, some inflicted by nature, some by bad luck, some by the government. In 1956 a flood did a great deal of damage, and Owen was criticized by the Forest Service for not cleaning up the debris promptly. In 1958 the lodge burned; in 1959 the chlorination unit in the pool allowed raw chlorine to escape, and the pool was closed by state health officials. In addition, the Forest Service was not sympathetic to Owen. The Forest Service, after a series of investigations between 1956 and 1960, concluded that the operation was wholly unsatisfactory, and recommended terminating the lease in 1966. District Ranger, Forest Supervisor, and Regional Forester were all in agreement that the operation was poorly run, and that the area could be used better as a public facility.

Owen did not give up. He refused to sign a new temporary lease terminating in 1966, and began a series of appeals. These included an appeal to Congressman Charles O. Porter. In a long letter to the Chief Forester in 1962, he dealt with the past record of the Forest Service in tolerating abuses by lessees, writing, "Local Forest Service officials have been guilty of at least tolerating some of the skum [sic] of the earth who operated this beautiful resort in the past while tying our hands by demanding we sign a lease that would reduce our investment to zero." Owen, by contrast, pointed out his own record as a public spirited citizen, and his contributions to recreation. These included work on the City Council of Eugene, and donations of land to the City of Eugene, and Spencer Butte Improvement Association, the Izaak Walton League, and the New Life Youth Corporation for park purposes.

Cliff denied him a new permit; but Owen kept up the fight. He appealed to the Secretary of Agriculture, who also said no. In a new appeal, published in the Register-Guard, April 8, 1964, he reduced his demands to a few acres, to include the pool and room for a lodge. However, the Forest Service position was that the site was needed for a future campground, that it had deteriorated as a resort, and that the resort would have to compete with the City of Oakridge for tourist trade. In the public interest, it should become an addition to Blue Pool Forest Camp. Owen, by September, asked the Chief Forester to donate the site to a group who would run it in the public interest. This was the New Life Youth Camp, a camp to rehabilitate juvenile offenders, in which Owen had a great interest. Letters on this subject were also sent to Senator Wayne Morse and to Maureen Neuberger. However, though Supervisor Gibney expressed some interest in the project, Forester Cliff denied all applications, and asked Owen to remove his property from the land.

The controversy showed every sign of continuing, but it was settled by an act of God. The Christmas flood of 1964, took out the buildings and other facilities. [49]

MARION LAKE AND WALDO LAKE

Major controversies rose over the size and areas to be included in the wilderness system. These involved three of the Forest Service wildernesses: Three Sisters, Mt. Jefferson, and Waldo Lake. They were controversies over definition and interpretation of the Wilderness Act, the areas concerned, and management policies. The controversy over Marion Lake related primarily to interpretation of the Wilderness Act.

Sentiment rose during the 1920s for giving a special status to the series of peaks, passes, and lakes in the area around Mt. Jefferson; it came from Forest Service personnel like C.C. Hall and from Mazamas and other outdoor clubs. On October 10, 1930, the Mt. Jefferson Primitive Area was set aside consisting of 52,200 acres. In 1932, a number of organizations, including the Mazamas, the Izaak Walton League, and local groups such as the Salem Chamber of Commerce, the Chemeketan Hiking Club, the Marion County Game Association, and the Santiam Fish and Game Protection Association asked that it be enlarged. In 1933, the area was enlarged to 86,700 acres by inclusion of Three Fingered Jack and a large number of alpine lakes. [50]

Marion Lake and Pamelia Lake were not included in the area. As it has been noted earlier, Fred W. Cleator, when laying out the Skyline Trail, had planned these lakes as semiprimitive camp area inaccessible by road, but with some developed campgrounds and summer homes. They were essentially rest stations near the Skyline Trail, where travelers could arrange for pack strings and supplies, and rest after the hardship of trail travel. At Marion Lake there were two additional factors. First, it already had two summer homes, one built in 1913, the other in 1925. Also, it was the site of a water power withdrawal, made in 1929 by the Northwestern Power Company. This project involved making Marion Lake a reservoir, and building a diversion canal at Whitewater Creek with a six-mile long canal to the power house on the North Santiam River. The project was largely to supply Salem and Albany with power. The Forest Service and the Oregon State Game Commission objected to the project, and eventually it was not approved; but at the time, the Forest Service was considering primitive area withdrawals, and the matter was not settled. [51]

Plans were made to include the Mt. Jefferson area, following the visit in 1938 by Robert Marshall; but war and defense preparations prevented any action. In the 1960s the Forest Service began reclassifying the area. Outdoor clubs in Oregon recommended a 117,242-acre wilderness; the Forest Service recommended a 96,844-acre wilderness. Public hearings were held in 1964; but they were inconclusive, and in September the Wilderness Act was passed, which placed its size in the hands of Congress.

Further hearings were held in October, 1966. The most attention was given to the inclusion in the area of a large number of alpine lakes. These included Pamelia Lake and Marion Lake. There was little difficulty experienced in including the trail corridor to Pamelia Lake, and the lake itself, in the wilderness; the major question rose as to Marion Lake and the trail corridor leading to it.

Marion Lake, over the years, had become a favorite fishing place. People had packed boats into the area, and left them there. To protect the boats, a boathouse had been built, and a boat owners association formed. Other developments at the lake included campgrounds and picnic tables, fireplaces, and water pumps. Supervisor Gibney took steps to protect the area by declaring a moratorium on timber harvesting in the enlarged area desired by the outdoor clubs, and protected Marion Lake by placing it within a 1,596-acre scenic area in order to protect the old-growth timber. Congress, in October of 1968, established the Mt. Jefferson Wilderness (P.L 90-548) with 96,462 acres, including Marion Lake.

Any questions over the developments in the Marion Lake area were addressed by the committee report on the bill, which directed the Forest Service to remove the recreation facilities and boats, as well as restore the wilderness character of the area. The Willamette National Forest followed the letter of the law, and removed the boathouse and other recreational developments to allow the area to revert to its wilderness status. The boat owners were given several delays to remove their boats, but within several years they were gone from the lake. [52]

The Marion Lake case was one of a series of test cases involving the definition of "wilderness," and facilities within a wilderness. The Forest Service tended to define wildernesses as those areas in which human impact has been slight; outdoor clubs, desirous of getting as much land in wilderness status as possible, desired consideration of land which was marginally wilderness in nature, and, in the opinion of the Forest Service, more valuable for multiple-use management. Another question was what facilities were permissible within the wildernesses. The Forest Service felt, correctly, that the presence of boats in the Marion Lake area, and of camping sites, fireplaces, and water pumps was incongruous with wilderness designation, and these were removed. Trail shelters like the heavily used Sunshine Shelter and others along the Skyline Trail were also removed as being human habitations, and hence out of keeping with the wilderness designation. They had also been victims of vandalism. A guard station at Gold Lake was also removed. This policy was not particularly approved of by some recreationists; Bill Parke, for example, thought that some of the shelters should have been preserved as being of historical value. The issue had become one of increased importance, especially with the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Should cairns erected by the Mazamas as repositories for their climbing records be preserved? What protection should be given to historic sites like sheepherders camps or to archeological sites? Should artifacts be left in situ or be packed out? These are problems that arose not only in the Willamette National Forest, but in parks and forests throughout the nation. [53]

Waldo Lake became another center of controversy. A favorite camping and hunting spot, it early became an irrigation and power site. The power site permit was revoked in 1915, a year after the dam was built, and Waldo Lake was restored to its classification as a limited area in 1946, pending plans for its development. The Skyline Trail passed through the area, and the CCC had built several campsites. The area was subjected to a detailed study under multiple-use/sustained-yield guidelines, and in 1961 Supervisor Gibney released his multiple-use plan which was approved by the Regional Forester. The plan called for recreation as the dominant use of the area, some grazing, and concern for wildlife habitat. Timber harvest would be limited, and done largely in right-of-way clearing for roads, and for sanitation cuts. The plan was objected to by the same groups who had opposed the French Pete plans (see next section). They were joined by the Lane County Parks and Recreation Commission, which had been influenced by Sierra Club representatives. They protested any timber harvest, and urged that the series of lakes to the north of Waldo Lake be managed as a wild area.

On appeal, the Regional Forester, in April, 1962, issued a general High Country Management Plan. This policy called for very limited logging in areas above 5,000 feet. The multiple-use plan was modified to fit this policy, and on September 17, 1963, the Regional Forester endorsed the new Waldo Lake Recreational Plan. Outdoor clubs protested, but in Washington, DC, the Chief endorsed it. The plan called for keeping the west side of the lake open only to trail travel, with the exception of some limited use of off-road vehicles. On the east end of the lake vehicular travel would be permitted, and the small lakes to the north would be subject to multiple-use management. No large timber harvest areas would be permitted, but an appeal by outdoor clubs that all cutting be banned was denied. An advisory committee would help the Service with management policy.

By 1968, the Waldo Lake recreation area was opened to the public. A 12.2 mile road connected the lake with Highway 58, the road being built well back from the lake in order to preserve scenic values. Clearing the right-of-way involved a timber sale of 3.3 million board feet to the Kinnan Logging Company. The early roads constructed to Skookum Creek and Box Canyon were reconstructed by the Hines Lumber Company, who were given a timber sale in the area, and whose logging road became a scenic road when the sale was completed. Several large new campgrounds were completed—North Waldo, a 60-unit area; Shadow Bay, a 103-unit campground; and Islet, a 60-unit. Campsites were built well back from the lakeshore to preserve scenic values. [54]

THE OLALLIE RIDGE/FRENCH PETE CONTROVERSY

The Olallie Ridge/French Pete controversy, especially in the period 1957-1970, was one of those controversies which has had lasting effects on the Forest Service and on the community. It made for a lasting rift between the Forest Service and the recreation-oriented groups, and it showed a remarkable tactical skill on the part of the various environmental groups. The complete story is not given here. It would require access to the records of all the individuals and groups involved and to the papers of the various public officials including Senators Wayne Morse, Richard Neuberger, Robert Packwood, and Mark Hatfield; Representative Jim Weaver; and Governor Robert Straub. This account is based on interviews primarily with Dave Gibney, former Forest Supervisor, and Forest Service records at the Eugene Supervisor's Office and the Regional Office, and does not pretend to give the entire story. [55]

Supervisor Pat Thompson and various Eugene groups wanted to create a primitive area similar to the Mt. Jefferson Primitive Area in the Three Sisters region. Thompson assigned William Parke the task of making a report on the area. With Ray Engles, Parke traveled the Skyline Trail, made an inventory of timber values, and prepared a report recommending creation of the Three Sisters Primitive Area. In 1935, Thompson and Parke studied the area and decided that the boundary on the west should be set at the east side of Horse Creek and thence southward to Frissell Crossing where it meets the South Fork of the McKenzie River. However, when Robert Marshall, Washington Office chief of the division of recreational lands, made a field trip to the Willamette, he suggested that the boundary be extended to the west, making the South Fork the western boundary. This addition had in the past been prime grazing land. Most of the timber was second growth, and the addition was made. [56]

In the 1940s new classifications were made, eliminating the title "primitive" and setting up new designations: "Wilderness" for areas of 100,000 acres or more, and "wild" areas for those of 5,000 to 100,000 acres. In addition, in the Northwest, another category was added—"limited" areas. These were "stop, look, and listen" areas which needed further study, and on which no logging or other activity could take place until an environmental study was made to see if they qualified. Parke made a number of studies on the forest and recommended that Diamond Peak be established as a wild area, which Rudo Fromme had studied and recommended as a primitive area as long ago as 1930. Parke also studied areas near Mt. Washington.

In 1950 the matter of the Three Sisters area came up. Parke, then in the Regional Office, helped to organize field trips by the Forest Service and various hiking clubs to examine the area. [57] The proposal to be examined was the desirability of eliminating the addition to the west side of the Three Sisters, and of restoring the boundary formerly favored—that of having the west boundary at Horse Creek and Frissell Crossing, and of adding wild areas near Diamond Peak, Waldo Lake, and Mt. Washington. A field examination was made by the Forest Service and "certain Oregon outdoor clubs." The Forest Service recommendations were favored. However, the Eugene Natural History Society had not been invited to take the inspection trip, and they felt that the area excluded had important ecological and scientific values. On July 13, 1951, 23 interested people met at the old Belknap CCC camp at McKenzie Ranger Station to discuss the matter and take another field trip through the region. District Ranger Brit Ash was present as well as Regional Office representatives including Parke with recreation, Leo Isaac of the research station, Huber of wildlife, and Wilson of water resources. Representatives of the Eugene Natural History Society, Obsidians, Mazamas, Trails Club, and the Wilderness Society were present.

In their discussion, the Obsidians and the Natural History Society felt that the original boundary should be kept. They stressed scientific values which needed to be available to scholars at the University of Oregon. It was pointed out to them, however, that only one or two people had carried on studies in the area, that no stations had been established, and that there had been no student field trips. The Forest Service had found there was little old-growth timber in the area; most of the timber was second growth, less than 100 years old. However, the timber harvest would amount to 21 million feet per year, worth $200,000 per year, and would provide $50,000 annually for schools and roads. The area was not really connected with the Three Sisters mountains, and the region was of value to the hiker rather than the mountaineer. The Service did propose modifications of the boundary, however, to include all life zones in the area.

As a result of the study, the Wilderness Society and most of the organizations accepted the Forest Service multiple-use plan. The Obsidians wanted to keep the larger boundaries, as did some Californian members who "obviously did not know all the details, but were for anything that looked like conservation." The Federation of Western Outdoor Clubs thought that the west boundary should be Horse Creek and Eugene Creek, and that the area west of this should be classified as a limited area, pending thorough examination. The Service, with this in mind, began a 10-year study of the area to determine its use. [58]

Most of the area to be eliminated lay in one of the most rugged areas of the Willamette National Forest, with a rough terrain, sharp ridges, and precipitous creek slopes, reaching a depth of 3,000 feet at French Pete Creek. The land was widely used by campers and hunters, and had been used by sheep grazers before World War II. The area included the rocky part of Sawtooth Ridge and the barren slopes of Lowder Mountain, Yankee Mountain, and Tipsoo Butte, used widely for sheep grazing until the 1960s. The area to the south included the drainage to the east side of the South Fork of the McKenzie River, and had a good growth of timber. [59]

In 1954, public notice was given of the proposal to classify 196,709 acres as the Three Sisters Wilderness, and to establish the Diamond Peak and Mt. Washington Wild Areas. Most people favored the Diamond Peak and Mt. Washington proposals. The question of the acreage to be included in the Three Sisters area resulted in a spirited controversy. Some people were for Horse Creek as the western boundary; others sought a boundary along Olallie Mountain and Horse Pasture Ridge; still others thought Separation Creek would be the proper boundary. Many stressed the need to preserve scientific values in several relict ecological areas. The numerous letters necessitated a public hearing, and such a hearing was held in Eugene on February 16 and 17, 1955. The record of the hearing, and other pertinent facts, were sent to the Secretary of Agriculture. The Secretary decided on February 3, 1957, to establish the Three Sisters Wilderness and exclude 53,000 acres west of Horse Creek. Also, a special plan would be developed for the excluded French Pete area. Wilderness status was not to be considered for the area, but scientific, ecological, and scenic values would be protected until the management plan was finished. [60]

In the period between 1957 and 1968, three things occurred. First, the Forest Service began developing its multiple-use plans for the area. These included some timber sales, particularly in the areas where there was insect infestation; plans for stream rehabilitation, French Pete Creek having suffered some damage in recent floods; and setting aside a number of natural and special interest tracts. The areas—Olallie Ridge Research Natural Area, Lowder Mountain Geological Area, Lamb Butte Scenic Area, Quaking Aspen Swamp Botanical Area, Yankee Mountain Scenic Area, and Rebel Rock Geological Area—were set aside, on request of the Secretary, to preserve valuable scientific, ecological, or scenic values. [61]

Second, the Sierra Club discovered Oregon. The club had previously cooperated with the Mazamas in hikes, but it had no district representative, and had not cooperated with the Mazamas or the Forest Service in developing the Pacific Crest Trail. By 1950, however, the Sierra Club had begun a program of national expansion, with the aim of becoming the dominant force in wilderness preservation. In 1954, a district representative, Brock Evans, was chosen to lead the new Pacific Northwest Chapter. In 1959 the Sierra Club issued a major blast against the Forest Service. The article was full of misrepresentations, with French Pete pictured as a virgin forest, "destined to be clearcut, with destruction of the luxuriant primaeval forest." Lumber interests were accused of wasteful practices, and the national demand for lumber was, according to the article, supposed to be on the decline. It advocated the creation of a Volcanic National Park, extending from Olallie Lake in the north to Diamond Peak in the south, totalling 972,000 acres. [62]

Third, the signing of the Wilderness Act of 1964, which included the Three Sisters Wilderness. The passage of the Wilderness Act through Congress took several years of political lobbying by various environmental organizations, especially the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society. Generally, the Forest Service opposed the bill as it had already established administrative wilderness areas in many parts of the country, including the Three Sisters Wilderness. Also to have Congress establish wildernesses would be unnecessary and redundant since the Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act of 1960 provided for recreation on the national forests. While the wilderness battle was going on in Congress, Irving Brant, an environmentalist and personal confidant of President Roosevelt, visited Eugene. He described to Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman what he observed:

I was hardly suprised to find the Forest Service fighting against its own system of wilderness protection. The supervisor [Gibney] of the Willamette National Forest...was addressing public meeting, telling people that the pending wilderness bill (which would become law in 1964) was a scheme to lock up timber resources and prepare the way for conversion of the entire wilderness system into national parks. That same forest supervisor, I reported, was working for a recreation plan that would open the beautiful Waldo Lake area to logging. Also, the Forest Service had in 1957 taken large forested areas out of the Three Sisters Wilderness and had begun bulldozing roads [a road connecting the East Fork of the McKenzie with the Foley Springs Road] into the eliminated areas to frustrate any movement to restore their protection. I concluded with the hope that Freeman would tackle the difficult job of making the national forests serve the national benefit. [63]

Matters came to a head in 1968. In the winter of 1967-68, Michael Kerrick, Ranger of the Blue River District snowshoed in to take a look at the East Fork of the McKenzie River area in which a timber sale was proposed for early 1968. This sale was to be the first timber sale in the 53,000 acres excluded in 1957 (commonly called the French Pete or Olallie area). Kerrick and his staff felt that the sale, which had been laid out in 1964, was not up to current Forest Service standards so far as silvicultural and some environmental aspects were concerned. He recommended that the sale not be offered without further work, and since the sale would undergo a great deal of scrutiny, it would be well to prepare it according to the highest possible standards. [64]

However, several environmental groups found out about the proposed timber sale and began to use it as an opening wedge to attack the Secretary's 1957 decision. The Save French Pete Committee was formed in Eugene by local people who proposed that the area be left in its natural state, with no roads or management activities. The committee said that the valley was only one of three roadless valleys that were 10 miles of more in length remaining in western Oregon. In addition, Richard Noyes, chair of the Save French Pete movement, wrote an article for the Sierra Club Bulletin which summarized many of the objections the proposed multiple-use plan. The Forest Service plans, he asserted, would mean "clearcut removal of about 18 million board feet of timber." Actually the plans called for a few small clearcuts, with the remaining sales being on a selective basis. Noyes dealt with the fish, asserting that the streams had "the best population of cutthroat trout to be found." This also was not the case. The Service reported that the recent floods had caused habitat damage, and there was need to enhance the fish habitat through debris removal. Noyes said that the valley was unique; the Service found other valleys in the Western Cascades of comparable nature. [65] Requests by the committee and others for a postponement of the sale were granted. On the advice of District Ranger Kerrick, the sale was cancelled.

In June, 1968, Michael Kerrick, District Ranger for the Blue River District, submitted a new management plan for the French Pete area. The Forest Service had worked this out in their multiple-use plans, as directed by the Secretary's 1957 decision and the Regional Forester's high mountain policy statement of 1962, which limited and applied restrictions to timber harvest in the mountains. [66] During the year, also, an alternative plan, called the French Pete Intermediate Recreation Plan, was prepared by the Save French Pete Committee. They wanted French Pete to be "an area from which public roads and commercial timber harvest was excluded, of sufficient size to accommodate a variety of outdoor experiences without crowding." The project was similar to the "semi-wilderness" in the planning of Fred Cleator, during the 1930s, for Pamelia Lake and Marion Lake. It was an expression of the general philosophy that management degrades, rather than enhances habitat, and that such things as tree disease and insect infestation will cure themselves if ignored. [67]

During the summer of 1968, a series of meetings were held on the French Pete project. Supervisor Gibney asked that the local newspaper, the Register-Guard, give full publicity to the controversy in order to solicit public reaction. The letters received in regard to the controversy give an interesting background. Opposition to multiple use management came from a series of individuals and organizations; 50 percent of those from individuals came from members of the University of Oregon faculty and their spouses. A large number of the organizations opposed to multiple-use were centered or had their leadership on the University of Oregon campus. The environmental organizations opposed to multiple-use fell into four categories. First were the groups organized by or closely associated with the Sierra Club. Of these, the Save French Pete Committee was the most important; others included the Friends of the Three Sisters and the Oregon Conservation Council. Second were older outdoor organizations which had been taken over by or sympathized with the activist factions. The Eugene Natural History Society was one of these. Third were local groups and individuals like Prince Helfrich, a McKenzie River guide; Karl Onthank, a former Mazama official; and the Willamette River Watchers, summer home owners who had had some differences with the Forest Service on river management and clearcutting. Fourth were the older outdoor clubs like the Obsidians and the Chemeketans, which were divided in their opinions.

Of the responses favoring development of multiple-use plans for the French Pete drainage, 36 percent came from lumber interests. Others came from the Oregon Sheep Growers Association; four chapters of the Society of American Foresters; the Chambers of Commerce of Lane County, Oakridge, Florence, and Springfield; and the Upper Willamette Soil and Water Conservation District. Meantime, tentative plans for development were made in April; and during the summer numerous "show me" trips were taken to the area for representatives of the outdoor clubs and timber industry. During the fall numerous presentations were made to service clubs and other organizations in the area. [68]

In March, 1969, Supervisor Gibney appointed a committee of 23, made up of all segments of local opinion, to examine alternative plans. By a majority of 18 to 5, the committee approved the Forest Service multiple-use plan. On March 25, the Supervisor announced that he had approved a management plan that met the specifications set forth in the Secretary's 1957 decision. On June 16, the Forest Supervisor's decision was appealed to the Regional Forester, Charles Connaughton. The appeal was made by eight environmental organizations, as well as a McKenzie River resident. In addition, representatives of the Save French Pete Committee had a personal interview on July 7th with Thomas K. Cowden, the Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, and Forest Service Chief Edward P. Cliff in order to present their views. On September 5, the Assistant Secretary, and on September 12, the Regional Forester, both denied the appeal, and supported the Forest Service plans as being consistent with establishment management directions. In November, further appeals were made on the procedural ground that a proposed timber sale had been announced while they were still in the process of perfecting these appeals. They were sent to the Secretary of Agriculture's Board of Forest Appeals. The board held that it had no jurisdiction and referred the matter to the Chief. However, on November 17, after the Oregon Congressional delegation requested the the Forest Service allow more time before action was taken, Secretary of Agriculture Clifford Hardin asked that the timber sale be postponed, and asked all parties to make suggestions and comments, with a deadline for submission on January 17, 1970. The Chief appointed a special task force, and on June 2, 1970, the Chief upheld the French Pete management plan. This decision, in turn was appealed to the Secretary. [69]

All the above was accompanied by a great deal of fanfare on the part of the groups opposed to the Forest Service plans. A student group, calling itself Nature's Conspiracy, demonstrated in November at the Forest Supervisor's Office in Eugene. The demonstration was estimated between 500 and 1,500, depending on who was counting. In the face of conflicting testimony, the precise make-up of Nature's Conspiracy is hard to determine. This writer's tentative judgment is that the nucleus of the group was made up of students and faculty members mobilized by the Sierra Club and affiliated organizations, with a sizeable number of students simply coming along to see the show. [70] They carried a petition to the Supervisor, who declined to meet them outside, but met a delegation in his office. Meantime, a group supporting multiple-use, "French Pete for the People" was organized under the leadership of Garnett E. Cannon, an insurance company executive and out-of-doorsman, who was joined by Philip Schneider, president of the Oregon Wildlife Association. The state federation, made up of a large number of outdoor clubs, had endorsed the Forest Service plans, which involved management of the meadows and timber to improve wildlife habitat, particularly for elk, and to increase pasturage for pack stock, and improvement of fishery habitat. [71]

In 1970, three events occurred which changed the course of the controversy. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) was signed into law on January 1, 1970. This was interpreted as requiring an environmental impact statement for any work carried on in the drainage, and such a study would postpone any timber sale. Second, Senator Robert Packwood decided to endorse the Intermediate Recreation Area Plan, and in late 1969 brought it to Congress as a bill. Third, Zane Smith, Gibney's successor as Supervisor, decided to handle the future of French Pete as a unit in the overall land use plan study for the Willamette National Forest, to be completed in 1975. This placed the issue in the political arena, where it remained. The political history of the French Pete issue is intriguing, but cannot be told fully until the papers of the various officials are open to the public. [72]

To summarize, one can divide the French Pete affair into four time periods. The first was from 1937 to 1957 when the Three Sisters Primitive Area was established, its boundaries revised, and its classification changed as a result of field investigation in 1950-51. This was followed by a series of appeals and the decision of the Secretary in 1957 to establish, administratively, the Three Sisters Wilderness and to exclude the French Pete drainage. The second, from 1957 to 1967, was marked by the Service's implementing the Secretary's recommendation that natural areas be set up (completed in 1962), the official establishment of the nearby Three Sisters Wilderness by the Wilderness Act of 1964, and by development of multiple-use plans for the area, including plans for timber harvest, recreation, water values, wildlife, and fisheries. The third period was from 1967 to 1970, during which the Sierra Club and supporting groups attacked various plans for the French Pete Creek area by mounting a major publicity campaign and by numerous administrative appeals. In this period, the Forest Service showed a spirit of cooperation and accommodation, taking members of the activist organizations on tours of the area and participating in public discussions. After 1970, during the last period (see the next Chapter), the issue became politicized, with Senator Robert Packwood's adoption of the issue as a political one. Final Congressional action on French Pete would not be completed until 1978.

RECREATION

Aside from these controversies, recreation shared with timber sales a dominant place in forest use. Some statistics may be cited; in 1953, Supervisor Bruckart reported 65,000 campers and 50,000 anglers were using the Willamette National Forest campgrounds and waters. By 1956, the numbers had grown to 95,000 campers and an equal number of anglers. Total use of the forest for recreation had doubled since 1946. By 1966, the number of campers increased to 225,000. A different system of computation was introduced in the 1960s, which gave the forest 2,166,200 user days. Camping made up about 25 percent of the normal day use, followed by motorized travel, water sports, fishing and hiking, and organizational camping. [73]

In the high country, the Skyline Trail was relocated over a period of years, beginning in 1960. Increased travel on the trail had created special problems. The soil in the highlands is thin and subject to erosion, especially on grades where a rapid snow melt makes for a fast run off in the spring. Water bars and relocation to minimum gradients were used to alleviate the condition. Other factors were accessibility to scenic views, and efforts to direct travel away from widely used areas. New stream crossings were located, especially at hazardous crossings where the melt from glaciers in the summer made for a fast run off after 11 a.m. A number of interpretive trails were built around the Dee Wright Observatory. [74]

The campgrounds varied in number during this period, from 74 to 85, as new campgrounds were built and older ones enlarged or consolidated. The facilities built by the CCC had served well during the 1940s, when there was relatively little use; but by the 1950s they were showing signs of wear and tear, and new campgrounds were built. Some maintained the old rustic pattern of wooden tables and benches, earth pit toilets made according to the classic design immortalized by Charles (Chic) Sale in his book, The Specialist but others had refinements such as flush toilets, community shelters, and pumping stations to clean out holding tanks for recreational vehicles. A number of new organization camps were established: For example, Boy Scout camps were established along Detroit Lake, Melakwa Lake (Camp Melakwa in 1949), and Pine Ridge Lake (Camp Pioneer in 1946); a horse camp along Big Lake; and a Seventh-Day Adventist camp also along the edge of Big Lake. A network of trails connected the various areas, or went along streams for the convenience of anglers. In much of the campground and trail work, the Service was aided by the voluntary labor of groups such as the Sierra Club, the Oregon Association of Mounted Posses, and the Boy Scouts. [75]

During the 1960s, major problems in the forest were littering and vandalism. Littering was a widespread problem both in wildernesses and in other regions. Hiking clubs such as the Mazamas had traditionally had their own regulations for leaving clean camps; but the wide use of the wildernesses by unorganized groups led to a great deal of littering. Tin cans, foil from freeze dried foods, and garbage were found around the major campsites, and Forest Service employees in the wildernesses estimated that 30 to 40 percent of their time was spent in clean-up activities. In other areas, campsites and stream beds were widely used for cast off debris—from beer cans to disposable diapers. The Forest Service estimated that ten percent of its total recreation fund was spent for the clean up activities required from the two million visitors. [76]

Vandalism was an equally troublesome matter. Vandalism ranged from the destruction of historic structures, such as the 1918 cabin at Box Canyon, to breaking into unoccupied guard stations and lookouts, shooting holes in signs, damaging signs, toilets, and tables, and stealing vehicles. Survivalists, motorcycle gangs, and drug addicts drifted into the forest, with accompanying incidents of shootings, theft, and personal violence. Property loss to the forest amounted to $11,857 in 1971 and $7,151 in 1972. In the past, the problem of apprehending individuals was difficult since it meant locating a U.S. Commissioner to swear out a warrant. However, in 1972 legislation was passed authorizing the Federal government agencies to enter into cooperative agreements with sheriff's deputies for the enforcement of state and local laws on Forest Service administered lands. [77]

To help finance recreation, the Forest Service, in 1962, initiated a fee system at Paradise Campground, charging $1 per day for its use. In 1965, the Land and Water Conservation Fund was established, which formalized payment of a national fee for use of campgrounds. For payment of $7, a Golden Eagle annual permit would allow entry into all Federal areas where a fee was charged. Senior citizens were given them free. [78]

NOTES—CHAPTER V

1 Clawson and Held, The Federal Lands, 35-36.

2 Marion Clawson, The Federal Lands Revisited (Baltimore, 1983), 35-39.

3 Lawrence Rakestraw, taped interview with Michael A. Kerrick, Dec. 3, 1984.

4 Clepper, Leaders in American Conservation, 20, 77-78; Charles A. Connaughton, "Recollections" (mimeo), Rakestraw collection; J. Herbert Stone, A Regional Forester's View of Multiple Use (Santa Cruz, 1972), an interview conducted by Elwood R. Maunder for the Forest History Society.

5 Bruckart File, WNF/H.

6 Aufderheide File, WNF/H.

7 Transcription of an interview with Edward W. Anderson, March 24, 1983.

8 David R. Gibney, note to Lawrence Rakestraw, Sept. 29, 1985.

9 Personal conversations between Lawrence Rakestraw and David R. Gibney, 1945-1985.

10 Annual Public Report Willamette National Forest, 1968 (Eugene, 1969), 17. [Hereafter cited as Ann. Rep. WNF, followed by year.]

11 Anderson Transcript.

12 Doig, Early Forest Research, 23; Munger, "Fifty Years," 226-247.

13 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1967, 20; 1968, 17.

14 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1962, 35; 1968, 24.

15 Christopher M. Granger, "Mining Claims on the National Forests: It's Time We Took Another Look," Journal of Forestry, 50:5 (May, 1952), 355-358.

16 Dana, Forest and Range Policy, 290-292.

17 Management Plan of the North Santiam, 1969, Detroit Ranger Station Historical Files.

18 Rock Mesa File, WNF/H.

19 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1957, 4; 1960, 10; 1961, 15; 1970, 7; 1971, 17.

20 James B. Trefethen, An American Crusade for Wildlife (New York, 1975), 256-269.

21 Wildlife Management Plan, Willamette National Forest, 1966, WNF/H.

22 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1970, 3-14.

23 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1962, 16-17

24 Carmen-Smith File, WNF/H; interviews with David R. Gibney; Ann. Rep. WNF 1956, 1; 1959, 11; 1960, 10; 1963, 5; Gerald W. Williams, McKenzie River Names: A Listing of Social, Historic, and Geographic Place Names, (Portland, In Press).

25 Appendix J, "Willamette River Basin," in Columbia River and Tributaries, Northwestern United States (81st Cong. 2d Session, HD 531: Washington, DC, 1950), gives a list of projects. Gerald W. Williams has compiled a list of news items on the dams from the Register-Guard. An undated speech by David R. Gibney, "The Forest Viewpoint of Interagency Studies of River Basins" is highly critical of the lack of consultation by other agencies with the Forest Service. See also Ann. Rep. WNF, 1952, 4.

26 Clippings from Register-Guard, WNF/H; Waldo Lake File; Paul G. Claeyssens, Private Enterprise and Early Twentieth Century Development on Oregon's Second Largest Lake: A Cultural Resource Evaluation Report of the Klovdahl Tunnel and Head gate Structure, Waldo Lake, Willamette National Forest, Oregon (Eugene, WNF, 1987).

27 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1952, 4-5; 1953, 2; 1956, 1; 1958, 3; 1959, 11-13; 1960, 10; 1964, 5. Files on Detroit Ranger District, Blue River Ranger District, and Lowell Ranger District have a great deal of information also.

28 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1963, 9; 1965, 3-7.

29 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1952-1971, show annual road building record.

30 Detailed description of building programs are to be found in WNF/H files on the individual districts. In addition some of the ranger district offices—especially Detroit, Sweet Home, and Blue River—have excellent files on buildings past and present. The Edward Anderson interview is valuable in regard to building problems.

31 Philip Briegleb, "Research in the Pacific Northwest," Timberlines, (June, 1971), 6-8; Doig, Early Forest Research, 18-29.

32 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1953, 3; 1954, 4; 1955, 5; 1959, 3; 1960, 10; 1962, 17; 1963, 13; 1965, 11.

33 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1968, 17.

34 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1972, 3-14. See Chart.

35 T.T. Munger, "A Look at Selective Cutting in Douglas Fir," Journal of Forestry, 48:2 (February, 1950), 97-99.

36 Bruckart, "Taming a Wild Forest"; James S. Bethel, "Clearcutting in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska," in Elanor J. Horwitz (ed.) Clearcutting: A View From the Top (Washington, DC, 1975), 126-148.

37 I am indebted to Gale Burwell for discussion of the reaction to clearcutting in the upper Willamette Valley and to Arthur W. Greeley for general comments.

38 David R. Gibney, "Forest Patterns," speech delivered at Willamette Chapter of SAF, May 10, 1970.

39 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1965, 11-12; 1966, 5; 1969, 3-19.

40 Charles Connaughton, "Forestry's Toughest Problem," Journal of Forestry, 64:7 (July, 1966), 446-448.

41 Charles Connaughton, "The Revolt Against Clearcutting," Journal of Forestry, 68:5 (May, 1970), 264-265.

42 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1967, 3-22; David R. Gibney, "How Far Have We Come and Are We Going in Fire Control," speech before Oregon Logging Congress, February 23, 1968, Gibney File, WNF/H.

43 L.C. Merriam, "Challenge of Changing Forest Use," Journal of Forestry, 68:5 (May, 1970), 289-293.

44 Edward C. Crafts, "The Saga of a Law," American Forests, 76:6 (June, 1970), 12-19, 52-54; 76:7 (July, 1970), 28-35, is the best account of the multiple-use/sustained-yield issue. The wilderness issue is best summarized in the article "Wilderness Preservation," Richard C. Davis (ed.) Encyclopedia of American Forest and Conservation History (New York, 1983), 693-701.

45 Michael P. Cohen, The History of the Sierra Club 1892-1970 (San Francisco, 1988), deals with the overall history of the Sierra Club until the Earth Day era, which therefore only lightly covers the Pacific Northwest Chapter. Susan R. Schrepfer, The Fight to Save the Redwoods (Madison, 1983), 163-230 gives by far the best analysis of the Sierra Club during Brower's term as Executive Director. Also Schrepfer's paper, "The Sierra Club and the U.S. Forest Service, 1945-1960," presented at the 1987 American Society for Environmental History meeting in Durham, NC. John McPhee, Encounters With the Archdruid (New York, 1971), gives a realistic and impressionist picture of Brower. John J. Mitchell and Constance Stallings, Ecotactics: The Sierra Club Handbook for Environmental Activists (New York, 1970) deals with activism as applied to issues in which the Sierra Club was interested. Susan Schrepfer, The Fight to Save the Redwoods, 185, describes the book as the Sierra Club's "most abrasive publication to date." Lawrence Rakestraw, "Warning: The Chainsaw Cometh (?)" Alaska Construction and Oil, (May, 1972), 68-70 deals with "dirty tricks" of the Sierra Club in Alaska, and his "Conservation Historiography: An Assessment," Pacific Historical Review, 41:3 (August, 1972), 271-288 gives a more overall view. Merriam, "Challenges of Changing Forest Use" is valuable. In "WKSLHW," An American Faculty (New York, 1974), 16-17, 89-91, and 114, two university professors write perceptively of student and faculty concern with environmental matters. L. Sprague DeCamp, The Purple Petrodactyls (New York, 1979), 201-228 writes a hilarious farce on the subject.

46 Michael McCloskey, "The Wilderness Movement at the Crossroads," Pacific Historical Review, 41:3 (August, 1972), 346-362.

47 Walter T. Hutchinson, "Public Relations: What We Have Bought and Where We are Headed," Journal of Forestry, 29:4 (April, 1931), 474-483.

48 Lawrence Rakestraw, A History of the United States Forest Service in Alaska (Anchorage, 1981), 150-152.

49 McCredie Hot Springs File, WNF/H.

50 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1968, 37.

51 H.E. Howes, "Willamette Power Withdrawals," March 9, 1936, WNF/H.

52 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1968, 3, 7. Also Dennis Roth, The Wilderness Movement and the National Forests, 1964-1980, Forest Service Publication 391 (U.S.G.P.O., 1984), 14-15.

53 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1968, 12; Parke interview.

54 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1968, 18; Norm Peterson, "History of the Waldo Study" (n.d.), WNF/H. David R. Gibney, "The Waldo Lake Controversy" speech before Springfield Kiwanis Club, June 2, 1962, Gibney File, WNF/H. D.R. Gibney to Regional Forester, January 12, 1968, Marion Lake File 2320-2, WNF/H. J. Melvin Hughes, Wilderness Land Allocation in a Multiple Use Management Framework in the Pacific Northwest (Ann Arbor, University Microfilms, 1960), 274-278, 400-409 gives a thorough summary of the issues.

55 Three studies of the French Pete controversy are valuable. Anthony Netboy, "French Pete for the People," American Forests, 76:5 (May, 1970), 16-18, gives a factually accurate account of the affair down to 1969. John Scott, "The Three Sisters Primitive Area," Mazama, 33:12 (December, 1951), 33-34, gives a full account of the 1950-1951 investigation. Hughes, Wilderness Land Allocation, 324-349 is a good account of the early stages of the controversy. Several accounts are written from the standpoint of the Sierra Club. These include David R. Simon, "Those are the Shining Mountains," Sierra Club Bulletin, 44:7 (October, 1959), 1-13, and Brock Evans, "Sic 'em Kids," in John C. Mitchell and Constance L. Stallings (ed.) Ecotactics, 112-114. These studies must be evaluated as one-sided rather than history. Dennis Roth, The Wilderness Movement and the National Forests, 1964-1980, Forest Service Publication 391 (U.S.G.P.O., 1984), 23-24, 70-74 is essentially "beltway" history—that is, history as seen from the perspective of the Washington Office, rather than the Region—and is not particularly relevant to this study.

56 Gerald W. Williams, taped interview with William Parke, WNF/H. David R. Gibney, in an interview with this writer September 29, 1985, pointed out that timber values at the time of the Parke trip were depressed, and that only Douglas-fir and white pine were valued species.

57 Parke interview.

58 Scott, "Three Sisters."

59 Land Classification, Cascade National Forest, WNF/H.

60 True D. Morse, Acting Secretary, "Decision of the Secretary of Agriculture Establishing the Three Sisters Wilderness Area, Willamette and Deschutes National Forests, February 3, 1957," WNF/H.

61 "Background: Management of the French Pete Drainage, March 3, 1971," French Pete File, WNF/H; Michael A. Kerrick, "Management Plans for the French Pete Drainage," Blue River Ranger District, June 28, 1968, French Pete File, WNF/H.

62 Simon, "These Are the Shining Mountains." The article also included distortions of the nature of the land reserved in the Mt. Washington, Waldo Lake, and Diamond Peak areas. Gibney, in the September 29 interview, stated that the Sierra Club had ambitions to create a large national park extending from the Columbia River to the California border.

63 Harold K Steen, The United States Forest Service: A History (Seattle, 1976); Dennis M. Roth, "The National Forests and the Campaign for Wilderness Legislation," Journal of Forest History, 28:3 (July, 1984), 112-125; Irving Brant, Adventures in Conservation with Franklin D. Roosevelt (Flagstaff, 1988), 315, 319.

64 David R. Gibney to Lawrence Rakestraw, October 23, 1985; David Burwell, comments on Gibney letter, November 4, 1985; Michael Kerrick, taped interview with Lawrence Rakestraw, December 3, 1984; Ed Anderson transcript, WNF/H.

65 Richard Noyes, "French Pete," Sierra Club Bulletin, 53:11 (December, 1968), 11-12.

66 Kerrick, "Management Plan." WNF/H.

67 "French Pete Intermediate Recreation Area," French Pete File, WNF/H. The plan seems to have been the result of collaboration between Brock Evans and Richard Noyes. It bears a strong resemblance to the "semi-wilderness" areas of Forest Service management in such areas as Eagle Creek.

68 "Background: Management of French Pete Drainage"; Gibney interview, September 29, 1985. French Pete File, WNF/H has a large number of petitions, declarations by various organizations, and of Forest Service evaluations of opinions pro and con. On student attitudes in general, Irwin Ungar, The Movement: A History of the American New Left, 1959-1972 (New York, 1974), 126-129 offers a keen analysis. Mitchell and Stallings (ed.) Ecotactics describes and encourages activism. "Protest," Sierra Club Bulletin, 54:11 (December, 1969) is informative. The Mazamas studied the issue but did not take a position on the matter until 1969. In that year they stated that many would have preferred a semi-wilderness status, but that they would abide with the Secretary's 1957 decision. They also urged the Forest Service to proceed with care in road location, making cutting areas compatible with the terrain, and preserving recreational areas. Mazama, 75:13 (December, 1969), 114-115.

69 Pertinent documents are located in French Pete File, WNF/H. They are summarized in "Background: Management of French Pete Drainage," Memo, March, 1971.

70 Accounts vary on the student demonstrations. Anthony Netboy, "French Pete" stated that the groups were campus radicals, and some Eugeneans regard this as being the case. Dennis Roth, in a letter to this writer, August 27, 1985, denied that the anti-war radicals were involved. Forest Service figures, in Willamette 1969: Annual Public Report of the Willamette National Forest (Eugene, 1970), placed the number at 500; Netboy, "French Pete" also has this figure. Both Dennis Roth, Wilderness Movement and Brock Evans, "Sic 'em Kids" use the 1,500 figure. Evans pointedly commented that Supervisor Gibney did not go out to meet the protesters. David Burwell stated to me that a confrontation between Gibney and the demonstrators would have led to a fight with loggers and demonstrators. Gibney pointed out that he invited demonstrators inside, but that they refused. Gibney also stated that the students were attracted by the offer of tickets to a rock concert if they demonstrated. Evans stated that the press favored the students; Gibney that the press was even-handed. Charles Connaughton, in "Recollections" told how a group from Portland State University, about 60 in number, marched on the Forest Service Regional Office. Connaughton invited them in, asked about their grievances, talked with them, showed them a slide film of French Pete, which none of them had visited, and sent them home peacefully. Such evidence as this writer has indicates that very few of the French Pete groups had ever visited the area.

71 Oregonian, January 17, 1970.

72 Much of this is contained in clippings, French Pete File, WNF/H. The Republican Party did not endorse either the Packwood Bill or the Forest Service plan in their March 1, 1970, Dorchester meeting; Netboy, "French Pete."

73 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1954, 2; 1956, 3; 1966, 5.

74 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1961, 22; 1962, 14.

75 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1961, 22; 1967, 20; 1970, 5, 15, 19.

76 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1972, 16.

77 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1972, 16.

78 Ann. Rep. WNF, 1962, 13; 1965, 10; 1967, 23.

CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY, 1945-1970

1946

The Act of July 24 (60 Stat. 656) amended the Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937 by limiting the apportionment of funds to any one state to not less than one-half percent and not more than five percent of the total amount apportioned, and by permitting the use of not more than 25 percent of the Federal apportionment for maintenance of completed wildlife-restoration projects.

The Farmers' Home Administration Act of August 14 (60 Stat. 1062) provided for a Farmers' Home Administration to replace the Farm Security Administration and to assume certain functions of the Farm Credit Administration and the National Housing Agency in order "to simplify and improve credit services to farmers and promote farm ownership."

The Act of August 14 (60 Stat. 1080) strengthened the Coordination Act of 1934 by authorizing the Secretary of the Interior, through the Fish and Wildlife Service, to provide assistance to, and cooperate with, Federal, state, and public or private agencies and organizations in the development, protection, and rehabilitation of wildlife resources in the United States.

Local research centers were organized for the first time under the Southern and the Southeastern Forest Experiment Stations.

1947

The Forest Pest Control Act of June 25 (61 Stat. 177) declared it to be the policy of the government to protect all forest lands irrespective of ownership from destructive forest insect pests and diseases. It authorized the Secretary of Agriculture either directly or in cooperation with other Federal agencies, state and local agencies, and private concerns and individuals to conduct surveys to detect infestations and to determine and carry out control measures against incipient, potential, or emergency outbreaks.

The Act of July 31 (61 Stat. 681) authorized the Secretary of the Interior to dispose of sand, stone, gravel, clay, timber, and other materials on public lands exclusive of national forests, national parks, national monuments, and Indian lands. Material exceeding $1,000 in appraised value must be sold at public auction. Receipts are disposed of in the same manner as receipts from the sale of public lands.

The Mineral Leasing Act for Acquired Lands of August 7 (61 Stat. 913) authorized the Secretary of the Interior to lease acquired lands containing deposits of coal, phosphate, oil, oil shale, gas, sodium, potassium, and sulfur under the provisions of the mineral leasing laws, with the consent of the head of the department having jurisdiction over the lands and subject to such conditions as he may prescribe.

1948

The Act of February 10 (62 Stat. 19) provided that whoever, without lawful authority or permission, shall go upon any national forest land while it is closed to the public by a regulation of the Secretary of Agriculture made pursuant to law, shall be subject to fine and imprisonment.

The Secretary of Agriculture in May established the National Forest Board of Review, the name of which was changed in 1950 to National Forest Advisory Council.

1949

The Act of June 25 (63 Stat. 271) increased to one million dollars a year the authorized appropriation for the conduct of the nationwide forest survey provided for by the McSweeney-McNary Act of 1928, as amended in 1944, with a limitation of 11 million dollars on total expenditures, and increased to $1,500,000 a year the authorized appropriation for keeping the survey current.

The Anderson-Mansfield Reforestation and Revegetation Act of October 11 (63 Stat. 762) authorized a schedule of appropriations for the reforestation and revegetation of the forest and range lands of the national forests. "It is the declared policy of the Congress to accelerate and provide a continuing basis for the needed reforestation and revegetation of national-forest lands and other lands under administration or control of the Forest Service."

The Act of October 26 (63 Stat. 909) amended the Clarke-McNary Act of 1924 by authorizing (1) annual increases in the appropriation for cooperative forest-fire protection with the states up to a maximum of $20,000,000 for the fiscal year 1955 and thereafter; (2) annual increases in the appropriation for cooperation with the states in providing planting stock for farmers and others up to a maximum of $2,500,000 for the fiscal year 1953 and thereafter; and (3) an annual appropriation of $500,000 for cooperation with the land-grant colleges or other suitable state agencies in educating farmers in the management of forest lands and in harvesting, utilizing, and marketing the products thereof.

The United States Supreme Court on November 7 (338 U.S. 863) upheld the decision of the Washington Supreme Court affirming the constitutionality of the Washington law of 1945 providing for the control of cutting on privately owned forest lands.

1950

The Granger-Thye Act of April 24 (64 Stat. 82), among many other provisions "to facilitate and simplify the work of the Forest Service," broadened the authority granted the Secretary of Agriculture by the act of March 3, 1925, to accept contributions for administration, protection, improvement, reforestation, and other work on non-Federal lands within or near national forests; provided for sales and exchanges of nursery stock with public agencies; authorized the lease, protection, and management of public and private range land intermingled with or adjacent to national forest land; made available, when appropriated by Congress, an amount equivalent to two cents per animal-month for sheep and 10 cents per animal-month for other kinds of livestock under permit on a national forest for range improvements on that forest; provided for the organization of local advisory boards on petition of a majority of the grazing permittees on a national forest; authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to issue permits for the grazing of livestock on national forests for periods not exceeding 10 years and renewals thereof; and repealed the provision of the Weeks Act of 1911 limiting contributions to counties to 40 percent of their income from other sources.

The Fish Restoration and Management Act (Dingell-Johnson Act) of August 9 (64 stat. 430) authorized the annual appropriation of an amount equivalent to the revenue from the tax on fishing rods, creels, reels, and artificial lures, baits, and flies, to be used for cooperation with the states in fish restoration and management projects up to 75 percent of the total cost of the projects.

The Cooperative Forest Management Act of August 25 (64 Stat. 473) authorized an annual appropriation of $2,500,000 to enable the Secretary of Agriculture to cooperate with state foresters in providing technical services to private forest landowners and operators and in processors of primary forest products. The Cooperative Farm Forestry Act of 1937 was repealed effective June 30, 1951.

1951

Horace J. Andrews died in a car accident on March 24th near Washington D.C. He was replaced by Charles A. Connaughton.

1952

The Smokey Bear Act of May 23 (66 Stat. 92) authorized the Secretary of Agriculture, after consultation with the Association of State Foresters and the Advertising Council, to not allow the manufacture, reproduce, or use of the name 'Smokey Bear' for profit. All fees collected by the Secretary of Agriculture from the permitted commercial use of "Smokey Bear" shall be deposited in a special account to further the nation-wide fire prevention campaign.

Lyle F. Watts resigned as Chief of the Forest Service and was succeeded on July 1 by Richard E. McArdle.

1953

The Agricultural Appropriations Act of July 28 (67 Stat. 205, 214) appropriated five million dollars to conduct studies and carry out preventive measures for the protection of watersheds under the provisions of the Soil Conservation Act of 1935.

1954

The Act of June 24 (68 Stat. 270) declared the controverted Oregon and California Railroad (O&C) lands in the indemnity strip to be O&C, which shall continue to be administered as national forest lands, and the receipts from which shall be disposed of as provided in the act of August 28, 1937. In order to facilitate administration and accounting, the Secretary of Agriculture was authorized to designate in each county an area of national forest land of substantially equal value, revenues from which shall be disposed of under the 1937 act. The Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture were also directed to block up national forest and intermingled and adjacent O&C lands, exclusive of those in the indemnity strip, by exchange of administrative jurisdiction on approximately an equal-value (and so far as practicable an equal-area) basis.

The Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act of August 4 (68 Stat. 666) authorized the Secretary of Agriculture, under specified conditions, to cooperate with states and local organizations for the purpose of preventing erosion, floodwater, and sediment damages and of furthering the conservation, development, utilization, and disposal of water. It repealed the authority granted the Secretary under the Flood Control Act of 1936 to make preliminary examinations and surveys and to prosecute certain works of improvement on watersheds, but preserved the authority to prosecute the 11 projects authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1944 and to prosecute emergency measures under the 1938 act.

1955

The Multiple Use Mining Act of July 23 (P.L. 167) amended the Materials Disposal Act of July 31, 1947, by adding common pumice, pumicate, and cinders to the materials specified in that act, and authorized the disposal of all such materials on both unreserved and reserved public lands except national parks, national monuments, and Indian lands by the secretary of the department having jurisdiction over the lands in question. It also provided that on unpatented claims hereafter located the United States shall have the right to dispose of the timber and other nonmineral surface resources, provided that such disposal shall not endanger or materially interfere with mining operations; and it established a procedure 6, which the right to use of timber and other surface resources on existing inactive mining claims may be cancelled or waived.

The Act of August 1 (P.L. 206) repealed the provisions of the Timber and Stone Act of June 3, 1878, providing for the sale of public lands chiefly valuable for timber or stone.

1956

"Mission 66" was undertaken by National Park Service to develop recreational facilities and undertake research, a five-year, multi-million dollar project.

The Al Sarena mining scandal, prompted by alleged Department of Interior improprieties in issuing questionable mining patent for valuable timberland, becomes partisan issue.

1957

"Operation Outdoors" was undertaken by Forest Service under the direction of William Parke. This was a five-year, five million dollar program to rehabilitate and develop recreational facilities on the national forests.

1958

The "Forest Highways" Act of August 27 (P.L. 85-767; 72 Stat. 885) authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to expend funds for construction and maintenance on forest highways, trails, bicycle lanes, and pedestrian walkways on public lands. This Act recognized a need to treat roads on public lands similar to the Federal-aid highway system.

The "Fish and Wildlife Conservation" Act of September 15 (P.L. 86-797; 74 Stat. 1052) authorized the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior to enter into cooperative agreements with State agencies to develop, maintain, and coordinate the conservation and rehabilitation of wildlife, fish, and game. The Act also authorized a public land management stamp which would be purchased by anyone who would hunt, trap, or fish on any public land within the state.

1960

The Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of June 12, 1960 (P.L. 86-517; 74 Stat. 215), authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to "develop and administer the renewable surface resources of the national forests for multiple use and sustained yield of the several products and services obtained therefrom." Stipulated as multiple uses were outdoor recreation, range, timber, water, and wildlife and fish. Finally, the multiple uses were qualified as being supplemental to, but not in derogation of, the purposes for which the national forests were established as set forth in act of June 4, 1897.

1962

The McIntire-Stennis Cooperative Research Act of October 10 (P.L. 87-788; 76 Stat. 806), authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to undertake coordinated program in forestry, range, and related research. The Forestry Research Act authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to provide 50 percent matching funds for forestry research at land grant colleges, agricultural experiment stations, and state-supported graduate programs in forestry.

Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring published, calling attention to environmental impact of pesticides.

Richard E. McArdle resigned and was replaced by Edward P. Cliff as new Chief of the Forest Service.

1963

The Bureau of Outdoor Recreation Act constituted the organic act for newly formed Bureau of Outdoor Recreation (Interior Department), created to provide technical planning services in the recreation field.

1964

The Wilderness Act of September 3, 1964 (P.L. 88-577; 78 Stat 890) established the National Wilderness Preservation System to be composed of Federally owned lands designated by Congress as "wilderness areas." The Secretary of Agriculture was specifically charged with responsibility for reviewing all Forest Service primitive areas for their wilderness suitability and recommending candidate areas to President within 10 years.

The Jobs Corps program was established as part of the Equal Opportunity Act of 1964 (P.L. 88-452). Numerous Job Corps Centers were established around the country, with many in the Forest Service (in later years, most of the centers were operated by private contractors) and oversight of the program by the Department of Labor. The program was designed for youth ages 16 to less than 22 at the time of enrollment, which was for two years. (The Job Corps program was reauthorized under Title IV of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act [CETA] of 1973 [P.L. 93-203] and 1978 [P.L. 95-524]).

1965

The Highways Beautification Act established a broad range of programs affecting billboards, junkyards, and strip development along Federally funded highways, heralding a new Federal policy on aesthetic conservation.

The Land and Water Conservation Fund Act of 1965, signed into law on September 3, 1964 (P.L. 88-578; 78 Stat. 897), was enacted for "(1) providing funds for and authorizing Federal assistance to the States in planning, acquisition, and development of needed land and water areas and facilities and (2) providing funds for the Federal acquisitions and development of certain lands and other areas."

The Water Resources Planning Act of July 22 (P.L. 89-80; 79 Stat. 244) declared that it was the policy of Congress to encourage the conservation, development, and utilization of water and related land resources. The Act established a Water Resources Council and authorized river basin commissions.

1966

The National Historic Preservation Act of October 15 (P.L. 89-665; 80 Stat. 915) declared national policy that "the historical and cultural foundations of the nation should be preserved as a living part of our community life and development in order to give a sense of orientation to the American people." To this end, the act established a National Register of Historic Places (including sites, structures, and objects); a grants-in-aid program to the states; and a matching-fund program to aid the National Trust for Historic Preservation chartered by Congress in 1949.

1968

The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of October 2 (P.L. 90-542; 82 Stat. 906) established a national system to preserve wild and scenic rivers which were to be authorized for inclusion by Congress or designated and administered by state through which they flow. Three-tiered system of classification created: Wild, scenic, and recreational. Criteria for inclusion in the system were established for each classification category. In Oregon, portions of the Rogue and Snake Rivers were included and in Washington, portions of the Skagit River were included in this Act.

The National Trails System Act of October 2 (P.L. 90-543; 82 Stat. 919) created a national trail system based on three trail categories: State and metropolitan trails, national recreation trails, and national scenic trails. Provided for "instant" designation of Appalachian and Pacific Crest trails and for study of 14 other trails for possible inclusion in the system.