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A Retrospective Look
The
Rocky Mountain Research Station's 14-state territory, extending from Canada
to Mexico, and Nevada to the Great Plains, is home to some of the first
forest and rangeland research sites in the Nation. The oldest, Santa Rita
Range Reserve, was established in 1903 near Tucson, Arizona. Initially
assigned to the Bureau of Plant Industry, it was transferred to the Forest
Service in 1915 and called an experimental range. Today, it still serves
as a center of study of the vast semidesert ranges of the Southwest.
In 1908, the Forest Service began its formal timber
management research at the Fort Valley Experimental Forest near Flagstaff,
Arizona. Shortly thereafter, in 1909, the Fremont Experimental Station
was founded near Manitou Springs, Colorado, with studies focused on Engelman
spruce, ponderosa pine, and Douglas-fir. In 1911, the Wagon Wheel Gap
Experimental Watershed, also in central Colorado, was established to study
streamflow and erosion. Also in 1911, and further north, the Priest River
Experimental Forest began operations in Idaho's northern panhandle. Researchers
studied thinning, planting, regeneration, and exotic tree species. The
Jornada Experimental Range also was founded that year in southern New
Mexico, with a mission to sustain and improve rangelands, and work began
at the Utah Experiment Station, high on the slopes of the Wasatch Plateau
in central Utah, where scientists studied silviculture and mountain rangelands.
During this period of seemingly rapid growth, experiment
stations bore little resemblance to the stations of today in terms of
size, scope, administrative independence, and sophistication of research.
The stations were small in both staffing and funding, and were administratively
part of a district (now known as a National Forest Service Region). Research
direction came from the Forest Service Chief's office in Washington, D.C.
and the regional forester's office. The early stations, in size and organization,
resembled experimental forests within a national forest, rather than the
system of laboratories found in urban settings today.
Passage of the McSweeney-McNary Act of 1928 gave research
a recognized separation from national forest administration. It provided
for the establishment of a network of 12 regional experiment stations
that would be the backbone of Forest Service research. Four experiment
stations would eventually be located throughout the Interior West: the
Northern Station in Missoula, Montana; the Intermountain Station in Ogden,
Utah; the Southwestern Station in Tucson, Arizona; and the Rocky Mountain
Station in Fort Collins, Colorado.
By the 1950's, reduced budgets were resulting in a
declining research program, especially at the smaller western facilities.
In 1953, to help meet changing needs, USDA announced a series of significant
reorganizations, including the mergers of the Northern and Intermountain
Stations (headquartered in Ogden), and the Southwestern and Rocky Mountain
Stations (headquartered in Fort Collins).
Over the next four decades, the two stations formed
and reformed their research programs to meet the ever-evolving needs of
natural resource management in the Interior West. Population growth, coupled
with the public's increasing interest in land management activities, intensified
the need to help resource managers and planners balance economic and environmental
demands for forest and rangeland resources.
In May 1997, the Intermountain Research Station and
the Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station merged into the
Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS), headquartered in Fort Collins,
Colorado.
The following two articles present individual histories
of the former Intermountain and Rocky Mountain Research Stations.
A Historic Look at the Intermountain Research
Station
(by Laurence Lassen, former Station Director, 1983-1992)
There was no organization known as the Intermountain
Station until 1928, but its origins can be traced to earlier times. Just
as the current Rocky Mountain Research Station is the product of station
consolidation, so was the Intermountain Station. The former station's
genesis goes to two locales: 1) Priest River Experimental Forest in Idaho's
panhandle, and 2) the Utah Experiment Station in Utah. The organizational
evolution at Priest River led to the formation of the Northern Rocky Mountain
Station, and at Ephraim, Utah, to the Intermountain Station. The two were
combined in 1953 under the name Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment
Station.
Research at Priest River began on September 1, 1911,
and, to the south, in 1912, construction of the Utah Experiment Station
was begun on the slopes of the Wasatch Plateau in central Utah.
Priest River and the Northern Rocky Mountain Station
Priest River scientists carried out silvicultural and
forest products utilization studies and developed an appreciation of indirect
forest benefits. The initial concept for the development of Priest River
was to create a miniature (4,500 acres) model forest managed along European
lines. It was to be financially self-supporting from the sale of timber.
The model forest concept never fully developed, however, because there
was no steady, local market for timber. The poor transportation network
and distance from sawmills worked against the scheme.
Millions of acres of timber land in northern Idaho
and western Montana were burned in the disastrous fires of 1910. Consequently,
the earliest work at Priest River emphasized planting and methods of cutting.
Forest fire research studies began in 1916, the year
Priest River headquarters moved to Missoula, Montana, because it was the
site of Forest Service Region 1 headquarters. At one point, limitations
on staffing and research funds reduced the Station to J.A. Larsen, who
served as both the station director and lone investigator. By 1922, Harry
Gisborne, recognized by many as the "father of forest fire research,"
became the first full-time forester assigned to Priest River. Total Station
funding reached $18,920 in 1923 to accommodate the new fire research activity.
From its inception, the Station was known by a hodgepodge
of different names. Repeated requests were made to Washington, D.C. to
change the name to the Northern Rocky Mountain Station, since headquarters
was in Montana, not Idaho. The requests were to no avail until 1925 when
the name change was approved.
In 1925, Bob Marshall, the now well-known proponent
of wilderness, joined the Station. Today, he is recognized as one of the
founders of the national forest wilderness system.
Western white or Idaho white pine was the premier timber
species in the Station's territory, and much of the research program was
related to that species. The introduced disease white pine blister rust
was the focus of much research and control activity. In later years, it
was conceded by most, that employment in control measures aided paying
the college tuition for many forestry school students, but didn't help
much in inhibiting the spread and destruction of the rust.
Utah Experiment Station
At the turn of the century, central Utah was the locale
for heavy sheep grazing, typical of a number of areas in the Intermountain
West. By the early 1900's, overgrazing in the mountain ranges resulted
in devastating floods coming out of the canyons along the Wasatch Plateau
and Wasatch Front. The floods caused great and repeated damage to communities
located in the valleys and at mouths of canyons. It was this flooding
that provided the impetus for establishing the Utah Experiment Station
in Ephraim in 1912. At the time, range research in the Forest Service
was a function of the Branch of Grazing, and not the Branch of Research.
Thus, the initiation and direction of the Utah Experiment Station was
different that that of the other research stations.
Since heavy snows limited the use of the site to the
period of late spring to early fall, the staff moved to Ogden for the
remainder of the year, and construction did not begin until 1913. Arthur
Sampson served as the first station director until 1922. After a few years
of operation under the name Utah Experiment Station, the name was changed
to the Great Basin Experiment Station.
Again, to illustrate the minuscule size of the stations
in the early 1920's, the Great Basin staff consisted of the director,
two temporary field assistants, and a newly-acquired light Ford truck.
By 1924, Station Director Clarence Forsling found himself alone as the
sole Station employee.
Early research at the Station was directed range seeding,
silviculture of aspen, lodgepole pine, ponderosa pine, and the management
of mountain ranges to control erosion and flooding.
McSweeney-McNary Act of 1928
Passage of the McSweeney-McNary Act of 1928 gave research
a recognized separation from national forest administration. It provided
for the establishment of the Intermountain Station, but did so with less
precision than for the Northern Rocky Mountain and the other 10 forest
and range experiment stations. The Act authorized an additional station
for Utah and adjoining states, but brought no overnight transformation.
The promise of a brighter day for Forest Service research funding was
dampened by the stock market crash of 1929 and the following Great Depression
- lasting from the early 1930's to WWII.
Intermountain and Northern Rocky Mountain Stations
Merge
USDA announced a series of significant reorganizations
in 1953 that affected the Forest Service. Among the changes was the merger
of the two stations on January 1, 1954. Territory for the new Intermountain
Station included northwestern South Dakota, eastern Washington, and a
bit of eastern California, in addition to the territory covered at the
time of the recent merger with the Rocky Mountain Station.
One of the many questions faced in the merger was where
to locate Station headquarters - Missoula or Ogden? Reed Bailey, Intermountain
Station Director at the time, was near the end of his career and not in
the best of health. He was supposed to go to Berkeley, California to head
up the California Forest and Range Experiment Station, but decided he
didn't want to go. He also decided he didn't want to go to Missoula, so,
at a meeting of Station personnel in Missoula, he announced that headquarters
would remain in Ogden.
The shock of the Russian launch of Sputnik in 1958
opened the coffers of the federal treasury to support science and research.
While forestry research wasn't a high national priority, the programs
grew nonetheless. The period of the late 1950's to the early 1970's was
the "Golden Era" with respect to the growth of Forest Service
research programs in terms of laboratory construction, equipment purchases,
increased staffing, and operating money.
Merger of the Rocky Mountain and Intermountain Stations
In 1992, USDA was taking a lot of criticism as being
not only wasteful, but out of control. Critics claimed there were too
many agencies and too many employees within the Department. The criticism
wasn't directed at the Forest Service, but as a component agency, it was
not immune from being part of the Department's reaction.
With a presidential election coming up in the fall,
Agriculture Secretary Edward Madigan asked all agency heads to seek greater
efficiencies of operation. With the station directors of both the Intermountain
and Southern Stations recently retired, and their positions unfilled,
in August 1992, Forest Service Chief Dale Robertson proposed merging the
Intermountain with the Rocky Mountain Station, and the Southern with the
Southeastern Station.
Shortly thereafter, a change in Administrations occurred
with the election of Bill Clinton as President, and Secretary Madigan
was replaced by Secretary Espy. Before the proposed mergers could take
place, Vice President Al Gore led an initiative to "reinvent government."
As part of that effort, the Forest Service developed a plan for a major
organizational restructuring, and the station mergers were put on hold.
Finally, in May of 1997, nearly 5 years after first proposed, the Rocky
Mountain and Intermountain Stations were merged.
A Historic Look at the Rocky Mountain Forest
and Range Experiment Station
The history of natural resources research in the Central
and Southern Rockies dates back to the early part of the century when
the Santa Rita Range Reserve was established in 1903 near Tucson, Arizona.
It was a center of study of the vast semi desert ranges of the Southwest.
In August 1908, the Forest Service began its formal
timber management research with establishment of the Fort Valley Experimental
Forest near Flagstaff, Arizona.
The
first research endeavors in what is now Region 2 of the Forest Service
was the Fremont Experiment Station, begun in 1909 near Manitou Springs,
Colorado. In those days the automobile was a luxury and forest administrators
were not thinking in terms of highway accessibility, so access to the
facility was by tram, with horse and wagon between the upper terminal
and the headquarters. Here, the principal forest types of the region,
Engelmann Spruce, ponderosa pine, and Douglas-fir, were studied.
A milestone in watershed management investigations
began in 1911 with the establishment of the Wagon Wheel Gap Experiment
on the Rio Grande National Forest in Colorado. Focus was on the effects
of forest cover on streamflow and erosion. Also in 1911, the Jornada Range
Reserve was founded in southern New Mexico. It's objectives were similar
to those of Santa Rita - how to improve and maintain rangelands, and how
to manage for sustained use and production of range livestock.
In 1915, the Forest Service established the Branch
of Research. The activities of the forest experiment stations, the Forest
Products Lab in Madison, Wisconsin, and the Washington, D.C. Office of
Products and Silviculture were placed under this new Branch of Research.
Included were experimental sites in the Central and Southern Rockies,
namely Fort Valley, Fremont, and Wagon Wheel Gap. Santa Rita and Jornada
Range Reserves continued under the Washington Office of Grazing Studies
until 1926 when they also became part of the Branch of Research.
As the importance and use of forest land resources
further increased, the Forest Service recommended the creation of a nationwide
forest research program consisting of one forest experiment station for
each of the 12 major timber regions of the United States.
Under
the McSweeney-McNary Act of 1928, Congress appropriated funds for establishment
of the Southwestern Forest and Range Experiment Station in 1930 on the
University of Arizona campus in Tucson. The Station's territory included
Arizona, New Mexico, west Texas and the Oklahoma panhandle. Research focused
on timber, watershed, and range management. The Station was later relocated
to Tumamoc Hill, 3 miles west of the city.
The Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station,
the last of the 12 stations funded, was established in 1935 on the Colorado
College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts campus (now Colorado State
University) in Fort Collins. All research previously handled by the Forest
Service in the central Rockies, including Fremont, was absorbed by the
new Station. R.E. McArdle, who later became Chief of the Forest Service,
was the first Station Director.
In
1936, the Manitou Experimental Forest was established near Woodland Park,
Colorado to conduct watershed management studies. The Fraser Experimental
Forest began operations in 1937 near the town of Fraser, Colorado. This
36-square-mile outdoor laboratory was selected to study pressing problems
related to water yield from high-elevation forests and alpine areas.
Finally, the Central Plains Experimental Range was
founded in 1939 on the eastern plains of Colorado to study range management
and grazing. (It was transferred to the Agriculture Research Service in
1954).
In 1953, the Rocky Mountain and Southwestern Stations
joined forces and merged, with headquarters in Fort Collins because it
was considered a more central location with available library and research
facilities at Colorado A&M College.
During the 1960's and 1970's, several new laboratories were built throughout
the Station's territory: Rapid City, SD and Tucson, AZ in 1960; Flagstaff,
AZ, Laramie, WY, and Bottineau, ND in 1963; Tempe, AZ in 1965; a new headquarters
building was constructed in 1967; the Albuquerque lab was co-located with
the Forest Service's Southwest Regional Office in 1967; and the Lincoln,
NE lab was dedicated in 1973.
Today, the Rocky Mountain Research Station is home to nearly 400 scientists,
administrators, and support personnel. The Station administers and conducts
research on 14 experimental forests, ranges, and watersheds, and maintains
long-term ecological data bases for these areas. It also oversees activities
on more than 200 research natural areas, and has the lead in five partnership
ecosystem management and research projects in Arizona, Colorado, Montana,
New Mexico, and Nevada.
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