History of forestry 1875-1889
1875-1889
1785
On April 26, 1785, Continental Congress approved a survey system calling for Townships of 7 square miles, subdivided into 49 sections, 1 mile square. One week later on May 3, Congress amended the survey system to require Townships of 6 square miles, still divided into 49 sections of 1 square mile each. Two weeks later on May 20, Congress again amended the system to Townships of 6 square miles, divided into 36 square miles.
May 18, 1796, Congress (Continental) adopts the standards for blazing Section Lines, which was in effect for over 200 years.
1808
The Northwest Fur Company sent David Thompson to explore in Montana and to set up trade with the Indians. Where the town of Libby stands, the first trading post was built.
1812
April 12, Congress establishes the General Land Office as a Bureau of the Treasury Department.
David Thompson of the Northwest Fur Company and his companions were the first known white men to see Flathead Lake.
1849
Congress creates Department of Interior.
1843
Jim Bridger built a trading post on a tributary of the Green River. It was the first post established beyond the Mississippi, with the purpose of providing supplies and services to emigrants passing through.
1845 First known sawmill built under the supervision of Catholic missionary priest father Anthony Ravalli at the site of the original St. Mary’s Mission, north of present Stevensville, Montana. Mill was water powered and used a single straight blade made form an iron tire from a wagon. He hammered the tire flat and cut the teeth with a cold chisel and file. Ravalli also built a grist mill at this site, using two millstones he brought from Belgium.
1853
Governor Stevens assigns Lieutenant John Mullan of the United States Army to explore potential routes across the Bitterroots. In 1859 & ‘60, a 624 mile road was passable from The Dalles, Oregon to Fort Benton, Montana.
1854
General Land Office is given responsibility for protecting the public domain.
1857
Millwright David Pattee built a second water powered sawmill and grist mill at the site of Fort Owen, which is near the site of the original St. Mary’s Mission where the first known sawmill was built.
1860
That spring, the first steam boat reaches Fort Benton.
1862
May 15, Congress creates Department of Agriculture. (Elevated to cabinet status in 1889).
The Homestead Act, giving “those with pioneer spirit” 160 western acres for the price of a filing fee and living on the land for five years, a.k.a. “Proving up”.
1863
Montana’s first production sawmill is located in present day Madison County.
1864
George Perkins Marsh, publishes, “Man and Nature, or Physical Geography as modified by Human Action ” warning of environmental deterioration. March extolled the idea of “Responsible Stewardship,” that humans have a moral obligation to use the land wisely and care for it so it will not be destroyed,
4Man is a disturbing agent and wherever he sets foot, the harmony of nature are set in discord.”
July 2, Northern Pacific Railroad Company is granted a 400 foot right-of-way, plus every “alternative section of public land, not mineral, designated by odd numbers to the amount of twenty alternative sections per mile, on each side of said railroad line, through Territories of the US and ten alternative sections of land per mile on each side of said railroad whenever it passes through any state.” The new railroad runs from Lake Superior to Puget Sound, 2,128 miles. The land grant contained 45 million acres. (completed in 1883)
1866
Andrew Fuller wrote, “The day is coming, if not already here, when her people will look back with regret to the time when forests were wantonly destroyed.”
1870
Silas Overpack, A Wheelwright and wagon maker from Manistee Michigan begins marketing Big Wheels.
1871
Massive forest fires sweep through several Lake State towns, perhaps 1,500 people perish in one fire at Peshtigo, Wisconsin, which even today is the highest fatality total for any one fire in North America. The Peshtigo and the great Chicago fires both occurred on October 8, 1871, which is why the week of October 8 is now recognized as National Fire Prevention Week.
1872
Congress passes "An Act to set apart a certain Tract of Land lying near the Head-waters of the Yellowstone River as a public Park,” March 1, Ulysses S. Grant signs, thus establishing over two millions acres as Yellowstone National Park, in Montana and Wyoming, the first in the history of the nation and or the world.
At the initiative of J. Sterling Morton, Nebraska observes "Tree-Planting Day" on April 10, inaugurating the tradition, which soon becomes known as Arbor Day. By 1907, Arbor Day is observed annually in every State in the Union, most importantly in the nation's schools. Today, Arbor is traditionally the last Friday in April.
April 10, General Mining Law, Mineral Lands designated a distinct class, provided for their survey and sale.
1873
March 3. Timber Culture Act. "An Act to encourage the Growth of Timber on western Prairies", granting settlers 160-acre plots if they have cultivated trees on 1/4 of the land for 10 years; the act reveals the growing public concern with conservation of forest resources, though it ultimately proves unenforceable and is repealed in 1891.
1875
American Forestry Association founded by concerned botanists and horticulturists; it emphasizes appreciation and protection of trees rather than forestry as an economic problem.
Congress passes "An act to protect ornamental and other trees on Government reservations and on lands purchased by the United States," forbidding the unauthorized cutting or injury of trees on government property.
1876
John Muir publishes "God's First Temples: How Shall We Preserve Our Forests?" one of his earliest pieces of published writing, in the Sacramento Record-Union; in it, he suggests the necessity for government protection of forests.
August 15, Appropriations Act, After Congress allocates $2,000 in a Department of Agriculture appropriations bill for "some man of approved attainments" to report to Congress on forestry matters, Franklin B. Hough is appointed first Federal Forestry Agent, with the task of gathering statistics about the state of the nation's forests.
1877
Carl Schurz begins a four-year term as Secretary of the Interior; under his leadership, the Department of the Interior takes an active interest in conservation issues for the first time, and Schurz himself advocates far-sighted conservation policies, such as the creation of Forest Reserves and a Federal Forest Service.
March 3, Desert Land Act "An act to provide for the sale of desert lands in certain States and Territories," known as the, offering claimants up to 640 acres of nontimber, non-mineral, uncultivable land at $1.25 an acre to any settler who would irrigate it within three years of filing.
October 5, Chief Joseph surrenders to General Nelson Miles in the Bear Paw Mountains.
1878
Franklin B. Hough begins to issue a landmark 650 page four-volume Report on Forestry to Congress, the first fruit of the Federal government's first forestry activities and a wide-ranging survey of information and issues that pertain to the management of the nation's forests.
June 3. Free Timber Act. Provided that residents in the several western states might cut timber on public mineral lands.
June 3. Timber and Stone Act. Provided 160 acres of surveyed, non-mineral land for sale in Washington, Oregon, California and Nevada. The land was to be chiefly valuable for timber or stone and unfit for cultivation.
Lima Locomotive and Machine Company (later renamed Lima Locomotive Works) begins building locomotives. It isn’t until June 14, 1881 that Ephraim Shay patents his idea of a geared locomotive. Lima made 2770 locomotives until 1945. In 1923, Number 5; a 70 ton geared locomotive is purchased by Anaconda. It was decommissioned in 1949 and is now on display in Great Falls.
1879
March 3. Sundry Civil Appropriations Act, Congress passes a sub-section of an appropriations bill officially establishing the U.S. Geological Survey as a bureau of the Interior Department, with responsibility for "the classification of the public lands."
1881
Division of Forestry provisionally established in the Department of Agriculture, with Franklin B. Hough as its first chief; until the Pinchot era, its role is largely confined to dispensing information and technical advice.
June 14, Ephraim Shay is awarded a patent (242,992) for his all wheel drive geared locomotive. These are the work horses of the west and could handle grades up to 20%.
1882
American Forestry Congresses meet in Cincinnati and Montreal.
April 18, John Dolbeer patented (256,553) his steam donkey engine and revolutionized yarding and ushered in the mechanical age of logging.
1883
September 8, Northern Pacific’s transcontinental railroad is completed and dedicated at Gold Creek, Montana with a golden spike.
1884
Charles Sprague Sargent, the director of Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum, publishes a Report on the Forests of North America (Exclusive of Mexico) as part of the Tenth Census; warns of the need to reform destructive timber management policies.
1886
June 30, Agriculture Appropriations Act. Grants the Division of Forestry permanent status within the Department of Agriculture; Bernhard E. Fernow is Forestry Division Chief.
4Responsibilities for forested regions of the public domain still remain with the Department of Interior.
4The Foresters are working for the Dept of Agriculture while the land is under the Dept of Interior.
June 6, The Improvement Company completed its first permanent sawmill at the convergence of the Big Blackfoot River and the Clark Fork. They had seven portable sawmills along the Northern Pacific Railroad, but this was the first permanent one. That spring was the first log drive down the Big Blackfoot, floating 20,000,000 board feet to the mill in Bonner.
1887
George Bird Grinnell and Theodore Roosevelt help found the Boone and Crockett Club, which plays a major role in associating big-game hunters with the conservation movement;
In an early act of wildlife conservation, Congress passes legislation granting the Seal Rocks off Point Lobos to San Francisco in trust for the people of the United States, on condition that the city "shall keep said rocks free from encroachment by man, and shall preserve from molestation the seals and other animals now accustomed to resort there."
With The Improvement Company under government investigation for cutting timber on public lands, the Blackfoot Milling Company took over their assets.
1888
January 1, Blackfoot Milling Company becomes the Blackfoot Milling and Manufacturing Company.
Climax Manufacturing Company, begins constricting geared locomotives. 1000 were made until 1928
1889
William Temple Hornaday publishes The Extermination of the American Bison, a report to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, severely criticizing the near-extermination of bison in the West, and advocating protection of what remained of the herds.
March 2, Department of Agriculture granted cabinet status.
February 22, Enabling Act, Congress granted to the State of Montana, for common school support, Sections 16 and 36 in every township within the state. The original common school grant was 5,188,000 acres.
November 8, by presidential proclamation, President Benjamin Harrison proclaims Montana as the 41st state in the Union.
Dr. Bernard E. Fernow, Chief of the Division of Forestry, advises Gifford Pinchot, “Not to take up forestry as his profession, but only as a second fiddle to something else.”
1872
Congress passes "An Act to set apart a certain Tract of Land lying near the Head-waters of the Yellowstone River as a public Park,", thus establishing Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, the first in the history of the nation and of the world; the Report of the Superintendent of the Yellowstone National Park for the Year 1872, published the following year, provides a portrait of the new park at its birth. At the initiative of J. Sterling Morton of the State Board of Agriculture, Nebraska observes "Tree-Planting Day" on April 10, inaugurating the tradition which soon becomes known as Arbor Day. By 1907, Arbor Day is observed annually in every State in the Union, most importantly in the nation's schools, where (as revealed in works such as the 1893 booklet Arbor Day Leaves), it provides several generations of young Americans with their most significant training in conservation principles and practice.
1872-74
In a reflection of strong popular interest in American scenery, including wilderness scenery, the Appleton Company publishes Picturesque America; or, The Land We Live In, ed. William Cullen Bryant, a massive 2-volume work containing reports and descriptions of scenic places along with superb
engravings based on the work of noted artists; the work circulates widely, creating enduringly influential popular images of some of the nation's most famous scenic spots.
1873
Under the influence of Marsh's Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action, Franklin B. Hough reads a paper at the annual
meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in Portland, Maine, entitled "On the Duty of Governments in the Preservation of Forests;" this inspires the Association to prepare and submit a Memorial on forest preservation to Congress, which initiates Congressional interest in forest protection. Initial publication of Forest and Stream magazine, which--especially under the leadership of George Bird Grinnell, senior editor and publisher from 1880 to 1911--becomes the major American sportsmen's magazine by the turn of the century and a forum for conservation advocacy. Congress passes "An Act to encourage the Growth of Timber on western Prairies", known as the Timber Culture Act, granting settlers 160-acre plots if they have cultivated trees on one-fourth of the land for ten years; the act reveals the growing public concern with conservation of forest resources, though it ultimately proves unenforceable and is repealed in 1891. mid-1870s Scribner's Monthly publishes reports from the Western expeditions led by Nathaniel P. Langford, Ferdinand V. Hayden, T.C. Evert, John Wesley Powell, and others; these greatly stimulate interest in the natural beauties of the West.
1874-75
Typifying the increasing popular interest in wild nature as a resource for human recreation, Scribner's Monthly publishes articles advocating the virtues of family camping in various spots throughout the country. 1875 American Forestry Association founded by concerned botanists and
horticulturalists; before c.1900, it emphasizes appreciation and protection of trees rather than forestry as an economic problem. Congress passes "An act to protect ornamental and other trees on Government reservations and on lands purchased by the United States, and for other purposes," forbidding the unauthorized cutting or injury of trees on government property.
1876
John Muir publishes "God's First Temples: How Shall We Preserve Our Forests?," one of his earliest pieces of published writing, in the Sacramento
Record-Union; in it, he suggests the necessity for government protection of forests. The Appalachian Mountain Club is founded in Boston, emphasizing a sense of stewardship toward the New England mountain wilds as part of its organizational philosophy; it is one of the nation's first and most important private conservation-related organizations. After Congress allocates $2,000 in a Department of Agriculture appropriations bill for "some man of approved attainments" to report to Congress on forestry matters, Franklin B. Hough is appointed first Federal forestry agent, with the
task of gathering statistics about the state of the nation's forests.
1877
Carl Schurz begins a four-year term as Secretary of the Interior; under his leadership, the Department of the Interior takes an active interest in
conservation issues for the first time, and Schurz himself advocates far-sighted conservation policies, such as the creation of forest reserves and
a Federal forest service. Congress passes "An act to provide for the sale of desert lands in certain States and Territories," known as the Desert Land Act, offering claimants up to 640 acres at $1.25 an acre if they have irrigated them.
1878
John Wesley Powell, then the geologist in charge of the U.S. Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region, publishes Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States, a pioneering work recognizing the West's unique environmental character, advocating irrigation and conservation efforts in it, and calling for the distribution of Western lands to settlers on a democratic and environmentally realistic basis.
Franklin B. Hough begins to issue a landmark four-volume Report upon Forestry to Congress, the first fruit of the Federal government's nascent forestry activities and a wide-ranging survey of information and issues pertinent to the management of the nation's forests.
1879
Congress passes a sub-section of an appropriations bill officially establishing the U.S. Geological Survey as a bureau of the Interior Department, with responsibility for "the classification of the public lands." Congress authorizes the appointment of a Public Lands Commission to review Federal public land policy; members include John Wesley Powell, Clarence Dutton, and Clarence King. The Commission spends several months travelling in the West, surveying land use; late in the year, it submits a Report to Congress expressing differing views among the Commissioners on how to
rationalize land policy, however all its recommendations are ignored by Congress.
1880s
The American Forestry Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science advocate designation of Western timberlands as
permanent public reservations.
1880
At the direction of the New York State Legislature, a commission led by State Survey Director James T. Gardner and Frederick Law Olmsted prepares a Special Report... on the Preservation of the Scenery of Niagara Falls, advocating State purchase, restoration and preservation through public ownership of the scenic lands surrounding Niagara Falls. Accompanied by a Memorial to the governor signed by more than a hundred prominent citizens, this Report defines the direction of the public campaign to save the beauties of Niagara.
1881
Division of Forestry provisionally established in the Department of Agriculture, with Franklin B. Hough as its first chief; until the Pinchot era,
its role is largely confined to dispensing information and technical advice. The remaining volumes of the Report upon Forestry are issued until 1884 under Hough and his successor, Nathaniel H. Egleston.
1882
In this and the preceding year, the campaign to save Niagara through the creation of a state-owned reserve is energized by the publication in New York and Boston newspapers of a series of letters calling attention to the dangers threatening Niagara's scenery; the 1882 letters, by Jonathan Baxter Harrison, also circulate in the form of a pamphlet entitled "The Condition of Niagara Falls, and the Measures Needed to Preserve Them".
Clarence Edward Dutton publishes "The Physical Geology of the Grand Canon District" in the Second Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey, a precise and beautifully discerning account of a remarkable natural region which demonstrates the exceptional scientific and even literary merit of many of the government-sponsored scientific survey reports published in this era. American Forestry Congresses meet in Cincinnati and Montreal. The Wheelman, a magazine for enthusiasts of the new bicycling craze, begins publication; it subsequently publishes a number of articles urging the enjoyment of bicycle touring to wild and scenic spots, reflecting the growing interest in nature-based recreation in America.
George Perkins Marsh dies in Italy, where he has been serving as U.S. Minister since 1861; his grave is in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome. At the time of his death, he is working on additional revisions to the latest edition of Man and Nature (which he had retitled The Earth as Modified by Human Action).
1883
The American Ornithologists' Union, a professional society dedicated to bird protection, founded in New York City; like the first Audubon Society (founded in 1886 by George Bird Grinnell, though it lasted only two years), this reflects the growing concern with birds and bird protection in American culture.
1884
Undertaking his research under the influence of Marsh's Man and Nature, Charles Sprague Sargent, the visionary director of Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum, publishes a Report on the Forests of North America (Exclusive of Mexico) as part of the Tenth Census; in addition to important scientific information, this influential work warns of the need to reform destructive timber management policies.
1885
New York State establishes the Adirondack Forest Preserve, stipulating that it "shall be kept forever as wild forest lands": a milestone in conservation
legislation. Formal opening (July 15) of New York State Reservation at Niagara, including a speech by James C. Carter, later published in pamphlet form, which links the spiritual importance of scenery to a philosophy of public preservation; the Reservation is a precedent-setting attempt to preserve scenic beauty while accommodating natural-resource use, and the capstone of a citizen campaign of conservation advocacy.
1886
In an appropriations bill for the Department of Agriculture, Congress creates the Division of Ecnomic Ornithology and Mammalogy, and grants the Division of Forestry permanent status within the Department; C. Hart Merriam heads the Economic Ornithology Division, and Bernhard E. Fernow is Forestry Division chief.
1887
Exemplifying the significance of sportsmen as conservationists, George Bird Grinnell and Theodore Roosevelt found the Boone and Crockett Club, which plays a major role in associating big-game hunters with the conservation movement; the Club eventually publishes several volumes of writings on hunting and conservation, including American Big Game In Its Haunts: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club, in 1904. Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux prepare a detailed plan for the restoration of the landscape immediately surrounding Niagara Falls; published as a Supplemental Report of the Commissioners of the State Reservation at Niagara, the plan shows how the challenges and paradoxes posed by scenic preservation and the accommodation of visitors in a carefully-conserved natural setting intersected with those of the emerging profession of landscape architecture, of which Olmsted was the nation's greatest practitioner. Charles Sprague Sargent founds and directs Garden and Forest, a literate, thoughtful, and informative weekly which does much to foster awareness of and interest in American forests, trees, horticulture, landscape design, and
scenic preservation during the ten years of its publication. In an early act of wildlife conservation, Congress passes legislation granting
the Seal Rocks off Point Lobos to San Francisco in trust for the people of the United States, on condition that the city "shall keep said rocks free from
encroachment by man, and shall preserve from molestation the seals and other animals now accustomed to resort there."
1889
William Temple Hornaday publishes The Extermination of the American Bison, a report to the Secretary of the Smithsonian which had originally been printed in the Smithsonian's annual report for 1887, severely criticizing the near-extermination of bison in the West, and advocating protection of what remained of the herds. Congress passes "An act to provide for the protection of the salmon fisheries of Alaska," the first of several such Federal statutory attempts to protect this economically valuable resource.
1889-91
Editorials by Robert Underwood Johnson in Century magazine help turn public opinion in favor of Federal forest conservation.