“On a crisp morning in 1882, the sound of a woodsman’s axe shattered the silence of Arizona’s pristine forest near Flagstaff. Two experienced lumberjacks from the pineries of Minnesota alternately sank double-bitted axes into the trunk of a towering ponderosa pine, artistically notching the broad trunk… As their axes drove deeper and deeper, the huge pine leaned slightly forward, hesitated for a moment, and then came crashing to the ground. Instantaneously, the cry ‘timber’ rang through the forest.”

It comes as a surprise to many that northern Arizona is home to the world’s largest continuous stand of ponderosa pine forest. Because timber is an extremely valuable resource throughout the arid American Southwest, many communities in the region have long historical ties to logging operations, forest management, wildland fire, and forest science. From the ancestral environmental care practices of the region’s Indigenous communities to the founding of the NAU School of Forestry in 1958, our communities were built on Arizona timber.

Northern Arizona University’s Special Collections & Archives (SCA) presents Timber! Northern Arizona’s Logging Legacy, unfolding a visual story of over 100 years worth of lumber and timber history and its impact on the communities of the greater Flagstaff area. SCA houses numerous collections related to the history of northern Arizona’s forests, which are available to the public for research.

The physical counterpart of this exhibit is available for public viewing in the SCA gallery, located on the second floor of the Cline Library on the NAU Mountain Campus, during open hours. The exhibit will be on display from August 2024 until August 2025.