1936-1945

1936

June 11, At the urging of Bob Marshall, acting chief Earl H. Clapp designated the Forest Services largest primitive area, 1,875,000 acres named the Selway-Bitterroot Primitive Area. (1,585,000 in Idaho and 290,000 in Montana)

1937

April 6, Incipient or Emergency Insect or Plant Disease Control Act. Authorized funds for control of outbreaks.

June 28, Civilian Conservation Corps established as official successor to the Emergency Conservation Work. Enrollment was for 6 months. Enrollees were required to set aside $25 of their $35 paycheck to assist their dependents. (usually their parents) By 1942, they built 122,000 miles of road and spent over six million hours fighting fires.

August 28, Secretary of the Interior authorized to establish sustained-yield forestry units on Oregon and California Railroad lands.

September 2, Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act. Pittman-Robertson Act. Tax on firearms and ammunition to be used in cooperation with states for wildlife restoration programs.

Donations of 19,058 acres by the Anaconda Copper Company and 1,210 acres from the Northern Pacific Railway in 1939 provide land for the Lubrecht Experimental Forest. The forest was named for W.C. Lubrecht who was manager of the Anaconda Company lumber operations at Bonner.

Anaconda Company starts using trucks to haul timber from the woods to their railhead.

1938

June 25, Fair Labor Standards Act. Established a minimum wage, the 40-hour work week, and forbade child labor for all business engaged in interstate commerce. Forgot to tell this to foresters and loggers.

K-Tag: In 1938, at the Davis Cabin Spring Blister Rust Control check station, Eldorado National Forest. Beside the door of the tent was a check list in alphabetical order of all the items the blister rust checker needed for the job. Under “K” was “Cruiser Tag” and the name stuck.

 1939

May 9, Reorganization Plan II. Transferred Bureau of Fisheries from the Department of Commerce and the Bureau of Biological Survey from the Department of Agriculture to the Department to of the Interior.

July 20, Restored to the president (not congress) authority to establish national forests in Montana.

Bob Marshall dies at 38

First Smoke Jumper development, Okanogan National Forest, Winthrop, Washington

U-Regulations promulgated, whish established three categories of Wilderness in the forest:

4Wilderness, Wild and Roadless.

1940

April 2, Reorganization Plan No. III. Consolidated the Bureau of Fisheries and the Bureau of Biological Survey into the Fish and Wildlife Service.

June 8, American Eagle Protection Act. Bald Eagle Protection Act.

Lea Act authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to provide for nationwide coordinated control of White Pine Blister Rust.

July 12, Rufas Robinson and Earl Cooley, are the First Smoke Jumpers who jumped on a fire. They jumped out of a Travel-air, spotted by Merle Lundrigan and flown by Dick Johnson (Johnson/Bell field) onto the Martin Creek Fire, Nez Perce N.F. Idaho.

In tribute to Bob Marshall, the Forest Service reclassified three Montana Primitive Areas as the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

1941

Tree Farm System established, landowners must follow “best accepted forest practices.”

1943 

Timber Production War Project is organized by the U.S. Forest Service in cooperation with the War Production Board, mainly to stimulate production of lumber, veneer logs and plywood.

1944

March 29, Sustained-Yield Forest Management Act. Authorized the secretary of agriculture and the secretary of the interior to establish cooperative sustained-yield forestry units.

Bureau of Reclamation established.

1945

May, Anaconda Copper Mining Company sells about 200,000 acres to J. Neils Company near Libby, Montana. This is later sold to St. Regis Paper Company.

The US Forest Service bought 89,989.74 acres of the primary grant lands from the Northern Pacific Railroad Company in the Lochsa and paid for them with equal value of timber from the Nez Perce, Clearwater, and St. Joe National Forests