Settlers and foresters in the West practiced logging, grazing and fire suppression: first stripping, then overcrowding forests.
| Cattle in pens, ca. 1940. |
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With the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, numerous settlers established homesteads on the Colorado Plateau. By 1900, overgrazing and timber extraction—67 million board feet a year—threatened to turn once lush grasslands and forests into desolate rock lands.
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Homestead of A.J. and Mary A. LeBarron (date unknown). |
In 1905, the recently established United States Forest Service introduced forest management on the Plateau. Twenty-one million acres of public lands were to be administered by a regional division of the Forest Service, with a mission to ensure productive public use.
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| Central Arizona Railway: unloading logs in Arizona
Lumber and Timber Sawmill lumber-yard, ca. 1890. |
All land is to be devoted to its most productive use for the permanent good of the whole people... All the resources of the forest reserves are for use.
| Pioneer camp scene: four men posing with wagon parked in front of tents, 1903. |  |
