January 19, 1812: John Aston Warder, Founder of the American Forestry Association, is Born

Happy birthday to Dr. John Aston Warder, founder of the American Forestry Association, and influential figure in the development of American horticulture and forestry.

On this date in 1812, John Aston Warder was born near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  The eldest son of Quakers Jeremiah and Ann Aston Warder, he developed a love of nature early in life, spending great amounts of time in the Pennsylvania woods near the family’s suburban home.

Warder attended Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, graduating in 1836 and establishing his medical practice in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Warder would practice medicine in Cincinnati for almost 20 years, while at the same time maintaining active interest in his pursuits related to the natural world.  He became involved with the Cincinnati Horticultural Society, the Cincinnati Society of Natural History, the Ohio Horticultural Society, the Ohio State Board of Agriculture, the Western Academy of Natural Sciences, and various other organizations.  Warder also helped draw public attention to gardening and landscape design, advocating for the beautification of parks and cemeteries.

Increasingly drawn to these outside pursuits, Warder gave up his medical practice in 1855 and moved to a rural home in North Bend, Ohio on land overlooking the Ohio River that was once part of the farm of President Benjamin Harrison.  There he practiced planting and gardening, and began a flurry of horticultural writings which were published over the next ten years.

During the 1860s Warder’s primary interest began to shift from horticulture to forestry.  His work in this area led to his 1873 appointment as United States Commissioner to the International Exhibition (World’s Fair) in Vienna, where he wrote the the official report on forests and forestry.  This report described the forestry exhibits of each country, presented detailed forest data, and made a great mass of European forestry knowledge available to Americans.

Warder was also one of the first people to propose planting protective belts of trees on the western plains of the U.S. to provide shelter from wind and protect the soil from erosion.  In his 1858 work Hedges and Evergreens, Warder wrote:

The barrenness of the great Western plains of our continent is said to depend more upon their aridity, and the constant evaporation caused by the winds that sweep over their surface, than upon any deficiency in the soil. It has been suggested, that the first step toward the settlement of such a country would be, to plant belts of trees of the hardiest drought-enduring kinds. . .

Warder would further develop these theories and continue to publish materials on the need for shelterbelts during the subsequent decades.

In 1875, Warder issued a call for persons interested in forest planting and conservation to meet in Chicago.  Those responding to this call met at the Grand Pacific Hotel on September 10, 1875, and there formed the American Forestry Association, with Warder selected as the group’s first president.  The organization was further established at the second meeting in Philadelphia on September 15, 1876, where Warder was reelected as president.  The formation of AFA proved to be a monumental moment in the history of forestry and conservation in this country, as it occurred prior to the existence of state and national forests, before forestry education programs in the U.S., and before the implementation of national forest policy.  AFA was able to facilitate the advance of American forest management and conservation into the 20th century.  Warder would remain as president until 1882, the year he helped merge AFA with the American Forestry Congress, further expanding the reach of the organization, which today is known as American Forests.

In  1883, Warder was chosen as Honorary President of the Ohio State Forestry Association.  That  same year he was also appointed agent of the Department of Agriculture to report on the Forestry of the Northwestern States.  While still actively contributing to the advancement of American forestry, Warder was unfortunately slowed by an illness during this time period.  Warder died on July 14, 1883 and was buried in Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery, a cemetery he himself had helped to design and landscape.

For more information relating to John Aston Warder, see the following collections from the FHS Archives:

• American Forestry Association Records, 1875-1997 (includes materials on the history of the organization)
• George H. Wirt Collection, 1873-1966 (includes an 1873 letter written by Warder, various speeches, and publications including the Report on Forests and Forestry from the 1873 Vienna Exposition)

Gifford Pinchot and the Search for “Permanent Peace”

The following is an op-ed piece that appeared in the Raleigh News and Observer on January 3, 2010. It was co-authored by FHS staff historian James G. Lewis and FHS member and professor of environmental history Char Miller.

Getting together for the environment

“In international relations, the great feature of the growth of the last century has been the gradual recognition of the fact that instead of its being normally to the interest of each nation to see another depressed, it is normally to the interest of each nation to see the others elevated.” So argued a Nobel Prize-winning president at an international meeting called to deal with a growing environmental crisis.

After calling upon those gathered to closely cooperate for the common good of all, he concluded: “I believe that the movement that you this day initiate is one of the utmost importance to this hemisphere and may become of the utmost importance to the world at large.”

These words were uttered 100 years before President Barack Obama went to Copenhagen to attend the climate-change meetings. Their source? Theodore Roosevelt.

Roosevelt was the keynote speaker at the 1909 North American Conservation conference, the first international conference on conservation policy. From the dais, he challenged his audience to think about the global threat posed by the too-rapid consumption of natural resources.

President Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot on the Inland Waterways trip in 1907. The Inland Waterways trip was one of several efforts by the president and Pinchot to generate media attention for the cause of conservation.

This conference succeeded in focusing attention on the need for conserving timber, coal and water resources in North America, and the president was eager to expand this concept to the world, committing the U.S. to supporting a world conservation conference to be held in the Netherlands in September 1909. Thirty nations had already accepted invitations to attend when Roosevelt’s successor, William Howard Taft, canceled it.

The driving force behind the White House’s commitment to international cooperation was Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service and an enormous influence on the first Roosevelt’s conservation policies. After studying forestry in Europe in the early 1890s, Pinchot briefly served as George Vanderbilt’s forester at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, where he demonstrated how judicious logging could rehabilitate the land at a time when loggers (and tax laws) favored clear-cutting forests and moving on to the next patch of land.

At the same time, Roosevelt was a rising star in New York’s political scene who had witnessed the damage loggers and farmers had done in the Northeast as well as in the Dakota Territory and much of the West. He shared Pinchot’s concern for the future of America’s natural resources.

The two first began working to change the physical as well as the political landscape when Roosevelt became governor of New York in 1898. When Roosevelt took over the presidency in 1901, he immediately embraced Pinchot’s plans for saving the public lands, and together they introduced conservation to the nation.

After the cancellation of the world conference in 1909, for the next 30 years Pinchot carried the idea for a world conservation conference to every president until the second President Roosevelt – Franklin – backed the idea. Pinchot had been talking with FDR about the need for such an international conference when war broke out in Europe in 1939. That’s when Pinchot began arguing that conservation was the only route to a “permanent” peace.

Although war had long been “an instrument of national policy for the safeguarding of natural resources or for securing them from other nations,” Pinchot argued in Nature (1940), this need not be the inevitable fate of human society: “International cooperation in conserving, utilizing, and distributing natural resources to the mutual advantage of all nations might well remove one of the most dangerous of all obstacles to a just and permanent world peace.”

Five years later, when the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Japan, Pinchot – nearly 80 years old – expanded his thinking to consider atomic energy as another natural resource to be included in his peace plan. If he was able to think beyond the immediate ravages of war, what is hindering us – in this much-more peaceful age – from acting to save the world?

Pinchot’s world conference plan eventually resulted in the 1949 U.N. Scientific Conference on the Conservation and Utilization of Resources. It was held at the dawn of the Cold War (and three years after Pinchot’s death). Conference attendees focused on how “the earth’s resources and the ingenuity of man can provide an almost unlimited potential for improved living standards for the world’s population” – the critical application of science to the pursuit of global peace. It was what Pinchot had envisioned and what should have been a goal for last month’s conference in Copenhagen – and afterward.

Obama apparently agrees. His acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize echoed Pinchot’s assertion of the pressing need to build a just and lasting peace. Obama declared: “[As a result of climate change], we will face more drought, more famine, more mass displacement – all of which will fuel more conflict for decades. For this reason, it is not merely scientists and environmental activists who call for swift and forceful action – it’s military leaders in my own country and others who understand our common security hangs in the balance.”

Pinchot was well aware of the precarious balance that conservationists must maintain as they fight to preserve natural resources and the human communities that depend on them. And he would remind us that any resolutions that come from the Copenhagen meetings are but first steps toward a long-delayed discussion about our global responsibilities. As Pinchot wrote in 1940, “The conservation of natural resources and fair access to needed raw materials are steps toward the common good to which all nations must in principle agree.”

Let’s hope that the president and other Copenhagen delegates remain as steadfast in their commitment to meet the common threat that potential climate changes pose for us all.

James G. Lewis is the staff historian at the Forest History Society in Durham. Char Miller is W.M. Keck professor of environmental analysis at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif.

Remembering Harold Bell, Creator of Woodsy Owl

This past weekend the New York Times reported the passing of Harold Bell on December 4 at age 90. Mr. Bell was one of the creators of Woodsy Owl, the Forest Service’s anti-pollution mascot. He was working with agency employees Glenn Kovar, Betty Conrad Hite, and Charles Williams (who gave Woodsy his slogan “Give a Hoot — Don’t Pollute!”) on the television show “Lassie.”  Mr. Bell was there in his capacity as a marketing agent, the others as technical advisers (since Lassie “belonged” to Forest Ranger Cory Stuart), when the Forest Service asked them to develop a new mascot to fight pollution. A self-taught cartoonist, Mr. Bell did the first drawings of Woodsy.

It was the late 1960s, when the environmental movement and concern for the earth were taking off. Newspaper editors were technically breaking a law by using Smokey Bear in media campaigns against pollution. (Federal law restricts Smokey to discussing firefighting issues. Woodsy has greater latitude. In addition to advising against littering, he has for several years been encouraging folks to “Lend a hand, care for the land” by planting trees and other activities.) The Forest Service developed Woodsy in part to get involved in the burgeoning environmental movement. Though created in time for the first Earth Day in 1970, he wasn’t formally introduced until September 15, 1971. Congress passed legislation protecting Woodsy’s image and establishing his licensing requirements in 1974. Funds from licensing agreements went to promoting education about conservation and fighting pollution. As we approach the fortieth birthday of the friendly owl, and given Woodsy’s message and the Forest Service’s emphasis on land restoration and conservation these days, it seems like the perfect time for Woodsy to make a return to the spotlight.

Because Woodsy was aimed at preschool and grade-school children, Mr. Bell and his creative team quickly settled on a woodland creature found in the wilderness as well as urban forests — the owl. Their owl would not be a wise old owl who might seem to be lecturing kids about pollution, but rather a young one with a kind face who, when in costume, could look children in the eye, which made it easier for them to relate to Woodsy. Within a few years of his introduction, a national survey found that Woodsy and his message were recognized by 90 percent of U.S. households with children and by 70 percent of the general population. Like his older “cousin” Smokey, Woodsy had his own song, appeared in television ads and children’s programs, and generated tons of fan mail from children around the country. (As discussed on this blog before, however, neither icon is in the Madison Avenue Advertising Walk of Fame, which is especially criminal in the case of Smokey.)

Woodsy and Smokey had another thing in common – Rudy Wendelin served as the lead artist for both characters. Complementing the materials in the U.S. Forest Service History Collection on Woodsy, which include education kits and a memo from 1988 debating whether to transfer or terminate the Woodsy program, the Wendelin collection has lots of cool Woodsy material. Rudy was brought in fairly early on in the development process to help bring Woodsy to life. Below are just three of the items: original artwork of Woodsy by Rudy, a January 1975 letter from Harold Bell to Rudy requesting Rudy’s help in giving Woodsy more “personality” in his face, and a thank-you note to Rudy with a feather from Woodsy.

Woodsy Owl, from the Rudolph Wendelin Papers

The letter from Harold Bell to Rudy Wendelin discussing Rudy doing some work on Woodsy. Click to read the letter and see some of Rudy's earliest sketches. (Rudolph Wendelin Papers)

When Rudy retired, Woodsy made the ultimate sacrifice for the man who gave him "personality." Click to read the note. (Rudolph Wendelin Papers)

Told you it was cool stuff!

Trucks, Tractors, and Swindle Sticks

Three new photo galleries added to our website today contain more than 250 historic photos illustrating aspects of logging over the past century.  The first gallery, Logging–Scaling, documents the work of scalers in the woods.  A scaler was the person who measured and marked the quality of timber, and estimated the number of board feet in a log.   Scalers used an instrument known as a “scale rule” to measure and place monetary value on the logs.

Scaling large log to measure volume of cut timber, July 1944.

With money at stake, scalers were sometimes the object of criticism.  As scaling standards, practices, and instruments evolved, disputes over inconsistencies became commonplace.  Many logging crews believed that the scaler automatically favored the millowners, and referred to his scale rule as a “cheat stick,” “thief stick,” “swindle stick,” or “robber’s cane.”  For an excellent history of the work of the scaler, see “The Scaler: Forgotten Man in Maine’s Lumbering Tradition” by William S. Warner, from the October 1982 issue of the Journal of Forest History.

Two other new photo galleries document the transport of logs, one featuring images of trucks, and the other with images of tractors and wagons.  The Logging–Hauling–Trucks gallery includes more than 100 images of trucks transporting large and small logs through various parts of the country.

A caravan of trucks carrying mammoth Douglas fir logs pass through North Bend, Washington.

The Logging–Hauling–Tractors and Wagons gallery shows the evolution of tractors, wagons, and trailers used to haul logs in the woods.  Included are a few images of the earliest Caterpillar tractors built by the Holt Manufacturing Company in Stockton, California.  A history of the crawler tractor, looking at the development of the Lombard log hauler and the Caterpillar tractor, can be found in the following clip from the FHS YouTube Channel:

For more information on early log hauling equipment, see the William H. Carson Collection in the FHS Archives.  For further reading related to the tractors gallery, also take a look at “From Bulls to Bulldozers: A Memoir on the Development of Machines in the Western Woods from Letters of Ted P. Flynn,” from the Fall 1963 issue of Forest History.

Caterpillar tractor hauling logs near Columbia, South Carolina, June 1929.

Visit all three of these new photo galleries:

• Logging–Scaling
• Logging–Hauling–Trucks
• Logging–Hauling–Tractors and Wagons

And for additional topics, see our previously posted subject galleries, or search the FHS Image Database.

How Turkeys Changed Forest History

In the spirit of Thanksgiving and large-scale turkey consumption, we wish to acknowledge the impact of turkeys on forest history. How did a couple of turkeys change history? Well, a better question might be: How did a handful of angry turkey hunters in West Virginia upend U.S. Forest Service timber management policy and help usher the agency into the environmental era?

Around 1964, a handful of hunters went to their favorite spot on the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia to hunt turkey. There, they found no turkeys because the area had been clearcut by the Forest Service. Upset, they took their complaints to the agency, eventually getting a meeting with Chief Ed Cliff, and demanded an end to clearcutting as a timber management practice. As Cliff says in an excerpt from his oral history Half A Century in Forest Conservation, “It soon got beyond the turkey hunting issue.” Indeed, what started off as a disappointing hunting trip for some buddies eventually led to Congress rewriting the Forest Service’s Organic Act and forever changing the agency.

Gobble gobble hey! Any chance you guys are going to West Virginia? (FHS image #R9_492831)

After several years of studies and discussion that changed nothing, the hunters turned to the Izaak Walton League and other conservation groups, and together they filed a lawsuit to stop the use of clearcutting as a harvesting method. Ironically, the outrage wasn’t over clearcutting per se, but over the size of the clearcuts. Nonetheless, the plaintiffs asserted that the Forest Service was in violation of the Organic Act of 1897, which allowed the cutting of “dead, matured, or large growth” trees that had been “marked and designated” for sale. Clearcutting removed all trees; no one bothered marking individual trees since they’d all be removed. No matter, said the court. The law is the law. Izaak Walton League v. Earl Butz was found in favor of the hunters and overturned “the whole legal basis for timber management on the national forests.” Congress now had to write a new organic act for the agency. The resulting National Forest Management Act changed how the Forest Service managed the national forests. Things were never the same for the agency after its passage in 1976 — additional protests and lawsuits further shaped and influenced how the agency conducted management. Ultimately, this led to its turn away from emphasizing timber management and to its embrace of ecosystem management.

This gross oversimplification of a major turning point in forest history is explored in numerous articles and books, many of which we’ve published. But we thought we’d pull two nuggets from our U.S. Forest Service History Collection to share with you. The first PDF is a one-page excerpt from Ed Cliff’s oral history. The second is from The Monongahela National Forest, 1915-1990, which weaves together oral histories and secondary sources into a solid history of the forest. This lengthy excerpt delves into the background of clearcutting on national forests and does a great job of providing context for the controversy, as well as showing that the agency was not monolithic in its thinking. So, on Thanksgiving Day, just before you drift into that tryptophan coma after eating too much turkey, think about how different history would be if only some turkeys had been hanging around in that clearcut in West Virginia.

Coweeta Hydrologic Lab Celebrates 75 Years

In 1934, the Coweeta Experimental Forest was officially established on the Nantahala National Forest.  Occupying nearly 4,000 acres just north of the North Carolina-Georgia border and renamed the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in 1948, the site would prove to be the source of some of the most influential research on forested watersheds done in the world.  This week a symposium to mark the 75th anniversary of Coweeta will look at the development of watershed science and celebrate the important research which continues to be done there.

The story of Coweeta begins with Dr. Charles R. Hursh, who was hired in 1926 as a researcher at the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station (now the Southern Research Station) in Asheville, NC.  Much of Hursh’s work was in streamflow and erosion studies, which led him to formulate broader theories of forests and water supply.  Hursh identified the Coweeta Basin (in the Appalachian Mountains just south of Franklin, NC) as an ideal spot to locate a permanent research station to study the impacts of forest management practices on soil and water.  Hursh was given access to the site and began informal research there, during which time an order establishing the Coweeta Experimental Forest was signed on June 1933 and then officially approved by Chief Ferdinand Silcox on March 28, 1934.

Coweeta Experimental Forest entrance sign with administrative building at right, 1942.

Workers from the nearby Civilian Conservation Corps Camp in Franklin, NC (CCC Camp NC-23) built roads, buildings, testing stations, and other installations on the site.  With limited resources and staffing, Hursh was still able to turn the site into an extensive hydrological laboratory and research station.  Early studies looked at the effects of logging, farming, and woodland grazing on forest watersheds.  Data gathered at the site was also used for important research in areas such as riparian vegetation and water supply; the properties of groundwater movement through soil; relationships between the atmosphere, environment, and forest watersheds; and the use of road banks for erosion control.

Image of rain gauge recording instrument at Coweeta, from a 1953 USFS publication (click to view full page).

The laboratory’s profile was further raised in 1955, when the Forest Service produced the film “The Waters of Coweeta” to increase nationwide awareness of the importance of watershed management and research.

The arrival of researcher Wayne T. Swank at the laboratory in the 1960s ensured the continuation of Coweeta’s influential work.  Swank spent more than 30 years at Coweeta, serving as project leader from 1984 to 1999, and helped to expand the successful research operations at the site.  Cooperative work with the University of Georgia’s Institute of Ecology began in 1968, and produced an ongoing valuable partnership.  Coweeta also became a National Science Foundation Long-Term Ecological Research site in 1980.  More recent years have seen the work shift to new areas of study such as water quality research, acid rain, invasive pests, and prescribed fire.

Through the years, Coweeta has maintained its importance as one of the oldest continuous environmental research studies in the world.  The hydrologic research there has shown how forest ecosystems can be responsibly managed without ruining valuable water resources.  Significant research in new areas ensures that Coweeta will remain as a center of forest research long into the future.

For more information on the history of the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory, see the following FHS resources:

• “Forest Watershed Research in the United States” by George G. Ice and John D. Stednick, from Forest History Today, Spring/Fall 2004
• Oral History Interview with Wayne T. Swank, conducted in 2005
• “Waters of Coweeta” USFS publication, 1953
• U.S. Forest Service History Collection watershed publication files
• USFS Collection Biographical File on Wayne Swank

When Timber Engineers Brought Ski Jumping to Chicago

With Chicago’s recent failure to become host city for the 2016 Summer Olympics, we here at Peeling Back the Bark were reminded of a little-known chapter from Chicago’s sports history which can be found in the FHS Archives.  Should Chicago have also submitted a bid for the Winter Olympiad?  Possibly.  We submit for your consideration this image of preparations for a ski jump competition taking place in Chicago’s Soldier Field in the year 1937.

A ski jump is readied for competition at Soldier Field, Chicago, 1937 (from FHS Archives).

Of course, this begs the questions: Why was there ski jumping in Chicago? And what does this have to do with forest history?  To answer both questions it helps to dig into the TECO company files in our archives, where this image came from.

The Timber Engineering Company (TECO) was formed in 1933 as the timber research subsidiary of the National Lumber Manufacturing Association (later known as the National Forest Products Association, and today as the American Forest & Paper Association).  TECO immediately established a wood products research laboratory in Washington D.C., and began its pioneering work in wood engineering and forest products testing and development.  The most notable early innovation was a unique brand of timber connector called a “split-ring.”  TECO purchased the rights to the split-ring connector from a German manufacturer in 1934, and further developed the product for use in assembling large timber tresses for building construction.

TECO timber connectors  proved to be a revolutionary development in wood construction, and were used in thousands of building projects such as schools, churches, theaters, warehouses, airplane hangars, lookout towers, bridges, and much more.

World War II U.S. Navy blimp hangar (1,000' long, 153' high) built using TECO timber connectors (FHS Archives).

That list of TECO engineered timber structures also included ski jumps, the largest being a 180-foot tall wooden ski jump temporarily erected outside of Soldier Field on more than one occasion.  A little known fact about Chicago’s sports history is that the city has hosted several large-scale international ski jumping competitions.

Brought to the U.S. by Norwegian immigrants, ski jumping was a very popular sport in the early 20th century, especially in the Northeast.  The sport of skiing was more directly tied to jumping at this time rather than downhill racing.  The 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, also helped to further spread the sport’s popularity in the U.S.  It was this popularity which facilitated the staging of ski jumping events in large American sports stadiums.

In February 1936, Soldier Field first hosted such a competition, which proved so successful that a larger ski jump was built again the following year.  In 1937, 140 jumpers competed in the event in front of nearly 60,000 spectators.  Soldier Field hosted another competition in 1938, but then not again until 1954 (Wrigley Field would also host a jumping competition in 1944).

Prefabricated, demountable 180' TECO timber connector-built wooden ski jump tower at Soldier Field, February 1937 (FHS Archives).

Chicago was not the only city hosting international ski jump events during this time period.  Surprisingly, California also hosted several similar events in equally unusual places.  TECO was not involved in their construction and wood was not always the main material used, but large temporary jumps were built in several California cities.  Using snow machines and crushed ice, ski jumping competitions were held in Berkeley in 1934, the Hollywood Bowl in 1935, at the San Francisco Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island in 1939, and in Los Angeles Coliseum in both 1938 and 1939.

Construction of the temporary ski jump at Los Angeles Coliseum.

While the decades following this “golden age” of American ski jumping have seen a decline of interest in the sport, TECO has maintained its presence in the wood products industry.  Celebrating its 75th anniversary last year, TECO continues to provide important work for the industry today through the testing and certification of building products.

For more information on the history of TECO, see the following FHS resources:

• The National Forest Products Association Records, 1902-1986.
• The Wilson Martindale Compton Papers, 1918-1966.
• TECO Company Files in the FHS Library.
• TECO subject file in the FHS Photograph Collection.

Ken Burns’s other “Best Idea” – Using FHS photos in his PBS film, “The National Parks”

We recently received an advanced copy of the new Ken Burns film, The National Parks – America’s Best Idea, which begins airing on PBS starting Sunday, September 27.  You can see images from the FHS Archives in the first three episodes and our name in the credits.  (By the way, if you can’t get to your TV when those air, the PBS website will be streaming the video of each episode after it airs.)

As we watched here at the Peeling Back the Bark World Headquarters for our images to appear in the film, we got to talking about other films in which our moving footage and still images have appeared.  Of course, tops on the list is The Greatest Good: A Forest Service Centennial Film.  (Normally, I’d say, Buy the book – don’t wait for the movie. But in this case, I say, Buy them both and now!)  Footage from the two films we’ve produced, Up in Flames and Timber on the Move, has appeared in a number of documentaries and television shows over the years.  Our images have appeared in films as varied as Hank Williams: Honky Tonk Blues to Fungi: Pennsylvania’s Hidden Treasures.  Below the photos that we think appear in The National Parks is a partial list of video projects with images or footage from our archive.

The other thing we discussed is how FHS expertise has been used in productions.  Sometimes it’s in a very hands-on manner, as with The Greatest Good.  That was fun because two of us were involved in reviewing the script and rough cuts of the film, and we were listed individually by name in the final credits.  Other times, we’ve been asked to do research that finds its way into scripts.  The latter is true for an upcoming History Channel show, America: the Story of US.  You can see the results of that in the spring.

Here are just a few of our images to look for in the Ken Burns film.

And here’s a list of some of the other productions in which our archival material has appeared:

- On PBS, from the American Masters series – Hank Williams: Honky Tonk Blues.  Hank briefly worked as a logger.

- Firestorm: The Fire Suppression Paradox, follows a firecrew from Ontario who joined with firefighters from the U.S. and other jurisdictions to fight a fire in the Bitterroot Valley, Montana, in the summer of 2000.

- Chief Mountain Hotshots: Firefighters of the Blackfeet Nation tells the history of one of the most respected Hotshot crews in the country.

- The Forest Where We Live – The Series (Louisiana Public Broadcasting)

- The Ultimate 10 Dangerous Jobs (“Ultimate 10″ series on TLC) – has footage of smokejumping from Up in Flames.

- Fungi: Pennsylvania’s Hidden Treasures is an award-winning full-length documentary produced by the State of Pennsylvania’s DCNR’s Wild Resource Conservation Program and Commonwealth Media.

- The Lord God Bird documentary film is about the ivory-billed woodpecker.

- The History Channel Toolbox Series – the episode on Mechanic’s Tools and Chainsaws.

- The History Channel series Modern Marvels – “Logging Technology” episode has footage from Timber on the Move.

- And for the upcoming 12-hour series on the History Channel, America: The Story of US, we conducted research and provided background material on 19th-century log drives in the upper Midwest.

It’s “Talk Like a (Log) Pirate” Day

In honor of International Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19, we here at Peeling Back the Barrrrk bring you the dramatic tale “Log Pirates of Puget Sound.” Although “Log Pirates” is an article by Stewart H. Holbrook that appeared in the January 1937 issue of American Forests, it reads like a pulp thriller/film noir from the 1940s, complete with a put-upon hero more married to his job than to his first wife, criminals with names like “High Pockets” and “Dark Moon,” cops on the take, stakeouts and undercover disguises, and keen detective work with a lot of gumshoeing. The film version would have starred Humphrey Bogart as William E. Craw, the battle-hardened former police captain-turned-log patrolman who suffered neither love nor corrupt loggers lightly.

This is how we envision the film having been cast if it were produced by Warner Bros. back in the late 1930s. If written as a swashbuckler, Robin Hood-type film, Errol Flynn would have made a great log pirate, stealing logs from villainous lumbermen along with the heart of a mill owner's daughter played by Olivia de Havilland.

What a great subject for a noir film this would be. Log theft was a major problem in the 1920s in the Tacoma, Washington, area. The high demand for lumber both in the U.S. and overseas had driven up prices, making piracy quite profitable and leading to the organization of gangs. The timber industry turned to the State of Washington for help. The legislature passed a law but did little else.  Desperate, seven timber companies came together to form the State Log Patrol in February 1928. They hired Craw, an ex-Marine with combat experience. He quickly assembled a crack squad of men and boats to start patrolling the waters and bust up the crime rings. Holbrook’s discussion of the use and abuse of log brands to identify ownership of logs is fascinating. The story of how Craw busted “High Pockets” Peterson because the ex-cop just happened to know about the properties of iron is straight out of Sherlock Holmes or, today, CSI. When the price of lumber dropped during the Great Depression, Craw had little crime solving to do and tried to start his own electronics shop to put food on the table for his second wife and children. Craw, his wife, and one of his two daughters were killed by a drunken reveler on July 4th, 1941, just a few months before lumber prices shot back up due to America’s entry into World War II and put the Log Patrol back in business.

Incidentally, Stewart Holbrook’s article was an excerpt from his book, “Holy Old Macinaw!”, which he brought up to date for the magazine. The article is a much better read. Once you’ve read “Log Pirates,” feel free to dig in a little deeper to the story over at the Washington State archives’ “History Link” website. Meanwhile, my piratical friend, hoist a tankard of grog to the memory of Cap’n Craw. Even a pirate must respect a lawman who can beat them at their own game.

Our thanks to American Forests for their permission to post this article!

New FHS Social Media Ad Campaign (poll)

Help us choose the brand new ad that will appear in an upcoming issue of Forest History Today magazine promoting the Forest History Society’s new social media tools.  Take a look at the ads below (click on any of the ads to enlarge them) and select your favorite in the poll at the bottom of the page.

The ad campaign features exclusive photos from the FHS Photo Collection.  Choose your favorite!

1. Hungry Man:

2. Saw Lady:

3. Flex Your Muscles:

4. Looking Up:

5. Makes No Sense:

6. Left Out in the Cold: