Hollywood in Flames

Guest Contributor Stephen Pyne originally published this essay in December 2024, just weeks before wildfires devastated the cities of Altadena and Pacific Palisades in the Los Angeles area in January 2025. The fires are expected to be the most destructive in U.S. history. — “The city burning is Los Angeles’s deepest image of itself.” -…

Remembering Westvaco’s Christmas Classics Book Series

In 1958, the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company started a holiday tradition that lasted half a century. Company CEO David Luke initiated the American Classics Series (also known as the Christmas Classics), published annually through 2007. According to Scott Wallinger, a former Westvaco company officer, “the Luke family favored being a producer of non-commodity…

A Journey Through the Life of L. Keville Larson, Forestry Consultant

Laurens Keville Larson (1937–2023) It was July 2023, and I was finally traveling to Mobile, Alabama, to conduct an oral history with Keville Larson. This interview was some time in the making. During the height of Covid quarantining, Steven Anderson and I attempted to interview him over Zoom. It wasn’t an ideal situation, so we…

How I Came to Mann Gulch

Guest Contributor Stephen Pyne took time out during a visit in 2012 to Mann Gulch to reflect on author Norman Maclean and his book Young Men and Fire.   “In my story of the Mann Gulch fire, how I first came to Mann Gulch is part of the story.”  – Norman Maclean, Young Men and…

Pauline Bunyans and WWII Victory Lumber

World War II created a shortage of workers along with a national need to produce lumber for military efforts. During the war, Weyerhaeuser News, the lumber company’s magazine, ran features highlighting the work done by the women who took over for the men who were called to serve. The 1942 issue of Weyerhaeuser News (see…

Remembering Estella Leopold
and Her Defense of the Eocene

Environmental historian Char Miller has shared his reflections on the conservation work of Estella Bergere Leopold, the prominent paleoecologist and conservationist, who died on February 25, 2024, at age 97. Some 34 million years ago, a butterfly died. It was a nymphalid, today the largest family of butterflies (and perhaps then, too). Paleontologists do not…

Life and Lunch: Alfred Eisenstaedt’s Weyerhaeuser Timber Crew Photographs

In December 1954, Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt journeyed into the woods near Snoqualmie Falls, Washington, for an unusual assignment. His subjects were a Weyerhaeuser Timber Company logging crew. But instead of photographing them felling trees, the men would appear in a Life magazine photo essay of Americans doing what millions did everyday—eating lunch. Eisenstaedt…

Down on the Bayou: The 1930s Forest Service Photos of Robert K. Winters

Robert K. Winters (1902-1999) had a long and impactful career in the world of forestry. While he ended his career as a leading figure in international forestry, his early years were spent trudging through the swamps of Louisiana. A selection of photographs taken by Winters during his time surveying the Deep South in the 1930s…

When Forester Ray Conarro Moved to Mississippi, Good Things Happened.

Ray Conarro served as the Forest Supervisor for the National Forests in Mississippi from August 1, 1933–June 30, 1940. This photo appeared in his “Recollections.” Imagine how Ray Conarro (1895–1977) felt when his superiors made him the inaugural supervisor of the Homochitto Purchase Unit in Mississippi—for which no land had yet been purchased. His charge…

History in the Making: A Librarian’s Experience at the Inaugural Women’s Forest Congress

The official logo of the Women’s Forest Congress This article will appear in the 2022 issue of Forest History Today. This past October 17, I woke up bright and early to fly to Minnesota. Why was I going there? I’d been before to visit my spouse’s family, but I think the state’s renowned natural splendor and…

The Oberlaender Trust and American Forestry

Wood in the Space Age: Forest Products at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair

On April 21, 1962, the Century 21 Exposition (better known as the Seattle World’s Fair) opened to the public. From a vacation home in Florida, President Kennedy pressed a telegraph key to officially start the fair. The Seattle World’s Fair is best remembered for the Space Needle, which became an enduring Seattle landmark, as well…

The ‘Ace Photographer’ and Paul Bunyan: Berenice Abbott’s Red River Lumber Company Photos

In February 1944 a new photograph exhibition opened at a San Francisco gallery, featuring a new set of images by the talented American photographer Berenice Abbott (1898-1991). The location where she had shot was a radical departure for the photographer known for working in urban settings: a lumber mill in a small town in northern…

The Bureau of Land Management at Seventy-Five: Who Will Celebrate with Them?

In 2021, the Bureau of Land Management turned 75 but with little if any fanfare. Historian James R. Skillen, who’s written extensively about the BLM, reflected upon its history. This article appears in the 2021 issue of Forest History Today. July 16, 2021, was the Bureau of Land Management’s seventy-fifth anniversary, but celebration was probably…

From the First Tree Farm to the President’s Front Lawn: Remembering the 1961 National Christmas Tree

The chosen 75-foot Douglas fir on the Clemons Tree Farm. Sixty years ago this month the National Christmas Tree was erected in Washington, DC, on the Ellipse between the White House and the Washington Monument. The annual tradition of a National Christmas Tree dates back to 1923, but from 1954 to 1972, the selected tree…

“How Great the Gain!”: Women and the Forest Service

This post, coauthored by James G. Lewis of the Forest History Society and Rachel D. Kline of the U.S. Forest Service, was originally published in a special issue of the journal Western Forester on “Women in Forestry” in August 2021. The journal is published by the Society of American Foresters’ Oregon, Washington State, and Alaska…

The Great Northwest Log Haul of 1988

On May 13, 1988, a convoy of trucks more than 12 miles long rolled down U.S. Highway 93 in Montana. Onlookers gawked and cheered as over 300 trucks fully loaded down with logs passed by one by one. This impressive display was actually a unique form of protest by the local logging community. Frustrated by…

Black Woman in Green: Excerpts from Gloria Brown’s Memoir

In 1999, Gloria Brown became the first female African American forest supervisor in the U.S. Forest Service. Gloria cowrote her memoir Black Woman in Green: Gloria Brown and the Unmarked Trail to Forest Service Leadership (Oregon State University Press, 2020) with Donna Sinclair, who shares her reflections on working with Gloria and excerpts from the memoir….

How Forest History Can Be Like A Beethoven Symphony

This post is adapted from the Editor’s Note in the Spring/Fall 2020 issue of Forest History Today. As I sit here in a medical facility in December, waiting to be called, surrounded by people wearing masks because of the global pandemic, I hear the welcome sound of someone playing a piano. A staffer, dressed head…

Harold E. Smith’s Forest Service Christmas Story

“Harold E. Smith’s Forest Service Christmas Story” is by USDA Forest Service historian Rachel D. Kline. As we approach the holiday season in the Forest Service during this unprecedented time, history shows us that our curtailed holiday activities during a difficult time are not really that unprecedented after all. In fact, there are reminders of…