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By Root 4226 0

that was stunning in both its scale and its breadth of vision. It was Roosevelt’s presidential “crowded hour.” Forty-five new national forests—scattered throughout eleven western states—were declared that day. New boundaries were also created for existing forests. All day long, Roosevelt signed documents creating or recognizing national forests. A total of ninety-three federal forest sites were effected within a twenty-four-hour period. Innovative protocols for range management, wildfire control, land planning, recreation, hydrology, and soil science were introduced throughout the American West. Because of Roosevelt’s “crowded hour,” much of the Rocky Mountains region, as well as the Pacific Northwest, would no longer be vulnerable to the lumberman’s ax (although, of course, forest fires would remain a serious threat).

Undoubtedly, the “Crowded Hour Reserves” had been under consideration by the Forest Service since 1905. Pinchot had worked intensely with the GLO, state agencies, business interests, and governors to iron out the legalities. Many of the new national forests bore well-known Indian names: Nez Perce National Forest in Idaho, Cheyenne National Forest in Wyoming, Uncompahgre National Forest in Colorado, and Sioux National Forest in Montana and South Dakota, among others. A few were named to honor great Anglo-Americans who had contributed to the opening of the West, including Lewis and Clark, Madison, Jefferson, and Custer in Montana; Powell in Utah; and Pike in Colorado. Other “Crowded Hour Forests” took the names of nearby cities: for example, Santa Barbara in California and Boise in Idaho. The new Columbia National Forest in Washington state near the Mount Saint Helens volcano—home to bald eagles, bull trout, chinook salmon, grizzly bears, northern spotted owls, gray wolves, and marbled murrelets, among other species—should have been granted national park status; it was certainly spectacular enough. But at least in 1949 it did become the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.

Roosevelt also announced on July 1 the creation of Kaibab National Forest (in what he called the Buckskin Mountains), home to high-altitude flora, mountain lions, and scores of mouse subspecies.68 This was another of Merriam’s special patches of wild Arizona. It was a geographical area beloved by both the Biological Survey and the Boone and Crockett Club. And now, after years of contention, it would be preserved as a national forest. A Texas character, Uncle Jim Owens, who had grown up on the Goodnight Ranch, was tapped to oversee the wildlife protection efforts in the national forestlands around the Grand Canyon. Uncle Jim Owens was a passionate supporter of the American Bison Society, working tirelessly to bring bison back to the West. “He was keenly interested not only in the preservation of the forests,” Roosevelt noted, “but in the preservation of the game.”69

Many of the “crowded hour reserves” were in places Roosevelt knew personally, particularly the Bighorn Forest in Montana, the Bitterroot in Montana-Idaho, and the Teton in Wyoming. In the 1890s, Roosevelt had written a series of essays about all three for his celebrated Dakota trilogy. New Ranger stations were ordered built in 1908, sometimes three or four per forest. Some of the Crowded Hour Reserves forests had begun as suggestions by his friends. For example, the ornithologist William Finley of Oregon successfully sponsored Malheur, Umatilla, Suislaw, Cascade, Umpqua, Siskiyou, Crater, and Wallowa national forests in his state. In the exhilarating rush of creation on July 1, two prime national forest sites in Oregon had been left off the list: Deschutes and Fremont. Pinchot worked quickly to correct the situation, and added them to the list of forest reserves on July 14. Judged purely on the basis of their size and scope, Roosevelt’s Crowded Hour Reserves were among the most important designations in the annals of American forest and wilderness preservation.

The jam of Crowded Hour Reserves animated the U.S. Forest Service as never before. Waves of new applications for positions