Grand Canyon - Parashant National Monument

Industry

plant graphic History of the Parashant Forest

The first logging occurred on the Parashant forest on the early 1860's providing timbers for the Grand Gulch mine. At that time, the Parashant was part of the Public Domain and administered by the Department of Interior. As a result of the Transfer Act of 1905, the lands became part of the newly established U. S. Forest Service and was placed in the Dixie National Forest.

A 1911 Forest Service inventory estimated a timber volume of 22 million board feet on the forest. The Parashant remained in the Dixie until 1916 when it was dropped from the National Forest system by the Wilson Administration. The area was returned to the Public Domain to be administered by the General Land Office.

Approximately 9 million board feet was harvested from the adjoining private lands. These operations ceased when the small sawmill at the head of Green Springs was destroyed by fire in the early '60s. The BLM sold two timber sales in the Parashant in the 1950's, 800 Mbf on the East Parashant in 1950 and 300Mbf on the West Parashant in 1955.

Grazing on the Parashant National Monument

Domestic livestock grazing has been a main industry of the Arizona Strip and Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument (GCPNM) region since it first began in the late 1800's, circa 1870-1890. Much of the early grazing was done with sheep and later the sheep bands were changed to cattle. Dependable water sources in the area were very scarce, and therefore, limited certain areas suitable for livestock grazing. Since the early 1900's, more dependable water sources have been developed which opened new areas to grazing. Livestock numbers in the region peaked sometime between 1915 and 1930. One account in 1915 suggests that 4,304 head of stock grazed areas around Mt. Trumbull and Parashant. Conflicts on the western ranges during this time spurred the enactment of the Taylor Grazing Act. The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 changed many of the ways public lands in the west were being grazed. Allotments were adjudicated, base waters established and forage was allocated to those allotments.

Livestock grazing is authorized on 38 allotments within the GCPNM. Nineteen or 50% of the allotments are completely within the monument. Only portions of the other 19 allotments are within the monument boundaries. Thirty seven permittees operate allotments on the monument. There are 40,082 authorized animal unit months (AUMs) on GCPNM. An AUM is the amount of forage required to sustain one cow or its equivalence for one month. Approximately 3,340 cattle are permitted on the monument. When considering the entire 1,053,880 acre land base of the monument, there is approximately 1 cow per 315 acres or 2 cows per section.