North Cascades

STEWARDSHIP OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN:
GOVERNMENT IN THE NORTH CASCADES

CHRONOLOGY OF FEDERAL STEWARDSHIP

Forest Reserves

Before any homesteaders, prospectors, or lumber companies had the opportunity to protest, substantial amounts of forest land in the North Cascades were set aside by the federal government for protection. The alarming rate at which the forests of the eastern seaboard and the midwest had been indiscriminately harvested prompted the government to respond. With the signing of the "Forest Reserve Clause" of 1891, President Benjamin Harrison authorized the establishment of forest reserves throughout the country. More than 17,600,000 acres of public domain were transferred into these reserves for safekeeping.

Unfortunately this measure of protection did not provide for the actual management of the forests and reserves. These areas became, in effect, closed pockets of land. Six years later, by Executive Order of February 22, 1897, an additional 21,000,000 acres of public domain in the northwest were withdrawn with great controversy, and referred to as the "Washington Reserves." Land embracing both slopes of the North Cascades -- a total of 3,594,240 acres -- became known as the Washington Forest Reserve. Concurrently, the Organic Administration Act was passed, providing guidelines for the management of these large protected areas. Under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior, the General Land Office (GLO) appointed individuals for the first time to oversee activity in these remote areas. GLO employees worked in a capacity similar to rangers in the USFS, monitoring and regulating activities such as illegal timber cutting, land fraud, squatter activity, and grazing permits. [1]

The Washington Forest Reserve was the largest of the reserves created by the Presidential Proclamation of February 22, 1897. Its boundaries enclosed an area approximately 5600 square miles in size, taking in land west of Mount Baker and south to the headwaters of Lake Chelan. [2] The GLO knew little of the rugged land it was charged with administering. Although the GLO periodically dispatched surveyors in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to survey land, the work was primarily confined to areas of settlement. Furthermore, historical records indicate that nearly all of the reserve remained unsurveyed and few people other than pioneer settlers or miners traveled into the forest during these early years.

The year 1905 was a landmark for the forest reserves. It was the year President Theodore Roosevelt transferred administration of the reserves from the GLO and Department of the Interior to the Bureau of Forestry in the Department of Agriculture. The United States Forest Service (USFS) was created and headed by a trained professional, a forester named Gifford Pinchot, whose guiding philosophy was "the greatest good for the greatest number." [3] The concept of a forest "ranger" became a working reality in the management of these areas. With land fraud schemes persisting, new reserves being established, and agricultural land opening to settlement for first time in nearly a decade, these rangers regulated and enforced USFS policy in the backwoods year-round, around-the-clock.