History of the US Forest Service

Imagine for a moment, that the Stanislaus National Forest - and all the other 154 national forests - did not exist. Imagine if California's 20 million acres of rivers, lakes, wildlife, and scenic beauty managed by the Forest Service were off limits to you.

This might have been the course of history had it not been for a handful of visionaries! One hundred years ago, these visionaries turned the course of land disposal or land "grabs" to the few in the short run, toward a new public land ethic for the "greatest good, of the greatest number in the long run". Thus our national forest system was born in the spirit of reserving land for future generations to use and enjoy.

During the westward expansion of the 1800s, it was the trend of national policy to promote transferring federal, public domain lands to private use and ownership. During that period, over one billion acres - more than half the land area of the US - were transferred into private hands through a number of public land laws such as the Homestead and Timber and Stone acts. Land was for the taking. But as federal public lands dwindled and resource devastation arose, a political shift occurred: the federal estate was considered for conservation in behalf of the public rather than for private ownership. It was the General Revision Act of 1891 that authorized Congress to reserve remaining, public, forest lands and prevent them from being acquired through the various public land laws. By 1905, the nation's forest reserves totaled 85,627,472 acres, and were overseen by the Department of Interior's General Land Office.

The first forest reserves were set aside beginning in 1891 and were administered by the Department of the Interior’s General Land Office. Conservationists of the day including John Muir founder of the Sierra Club, fiercely debated over who should manage these reserves.

Early in 1905, Gifford Pinchot, then the chief of the Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Forestry, began gathering support for transferring the forest reserves from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Agriculture. Pinchot was a firm believer that the nation's forests should be a sustainable source of lumber and other resources needed by the growing nation.

On July 1, 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt changed the Bureau of Forestry to the USDA Forest Service and appointed Gifford Pinchot as the first chief forester. Two years later, the forest reserves became the National Forest system that we have today.The creation of the Forest Service introduced a new conservation ethic that is different than that of any other land agency. Its mission "Caring for the Land and Serving People," focuses on multiple use and strives to sustain healthy, diverse, and productive forests and grasslands today and for future generations.

Each person and community of interest has a value system that helps it define: What is the "greatest good?" Who will be included in, and how will the "greatest number" be calculated? And, how long is the "long run?" But no matter how each of us understands "the greatest good, of the greatest number, in the long run", the fact that our national forest public lands exist provides the substance for our ongoing negotiations.

Celebrate your national forests. Nurture them. And tip your cap to those who provided us with this inspiring legacy a hundred years ago - the gift of public land.

As the Forest Service enters its Centennial year, a new documentary brings the history of the agency to a broad audience. “The Greatest Good” uses rarely seen footage and photos, sweeping HD landscape aerial shots and dozens of interviews to tell a complex and compelling story of the American land. learn more