Next year will mark the JOO-year a,miver.lary of the first regulated limber harvesl on the national forestsin the US. WIlY was it located in the Black Hills of South Dakotai' The answer is at least partially

answered in letters dUll Gifford Pinchot received from his mOltor Sir Deitrich Brandis. A March 27, 1897

letter ends "Of alllile Reserves set apart by Cleveland's proclamation, the Black Hills Forest in Dakotaand Wyoming seems to be the most suitable to make a beginning of regular management. Would il not be

pOSSible to get a scheme passedfor the administration of these 968,000 acres as a beginningi' I amstrongly in favor of steady progress from small beginnings. " In a]uly 8, J897 letter Brandis jUrther

suggests that 'i\pparently there is a certain demandfor the mining and agricultural population ill tile

vicinity. The forests therefore may be profitably worked at once. "ThefollOwing article offers a historicalcontext to thefirst timber sale under the 1897 Organic Administ7"al'ion ACI.

TIMBER USERS ,TIMBER SAVERS

HOMESTAKE MINING COMPANY AND THE

FIRST REGULATED TIMBER HARVEST

f""'" he Progressive Era (1900-1916) has emerged as a period crucial to the suc­cess of the late nineteenth century conservation crusade. During this

optimistic era of social reform, with its faith in technology and efficiency,"- demands for a halt to the destruction and waste of the nation's natural

resourccs becamc established fedcral policy. Many studies haveexamined the varied themes of the conservation movement,from the aesthctic importancc of the environmcnt to the fearthat the depIction of resources, such as timber, thrcatcned thevery existence of American society. These studies have mostoften defined the users of resources as the despoilers of theenvironment. Such an approach, howcvcr, ignores the rolc ofindustry in conservation.

An illustration of the importance of resource users to theconservation story can be found in the Black Hills of South

Dakota, where the Homestake Mining Company has been thelargest consumer of trees from the region's public lands. Thecompany's logging operations passed through three phasescorresponding to changes in popular attitude and nationalpolicy regarding resource conservation. From just after thebeginning of the Black Hills gold rush in 1876 until the creationof the Black Hills Forest Reserve in 1897, Homestake loggersdestroyed large portiOns of the forest with the aid of legislationthat encouraged the unlimited use of the nation's apparentlyinexhaustible timber resources. With the beginning of the shift

BY RICHMOND L. CLOW

6 I'OIUJST HISTOR.Y TODAY I 1998

Slaciu of logs waiting 10~ processedat fhe mines and mills of Terraville in

Ihe northml Blade Hills.

in federal policy toward conservationand the ad\'t'nt of the forest resen't',the company initiated fraudulentmining claims to keep on cuttingtrees from the restricted land. Finally,once the leadership of Homestakeunderstood the Progressive foun­dation of the movement [0 saveresources and realized that con­servation was in its best long-terminterest (largely through the effortsof Gifford Pinchot), the mining com­pany not only accepted forest con­servation but also played an activerole in shaping modern forestry.Embracing the new conservationpolicy. Homestake initiated TimberCase No. I. the first regulated timberharvest from a public forest resen'e.

An important relationship existedbetween nineteenth·century gold­mining and lumbering. Trees pro­vided cordwood for fuel. saw boardsfor building construction, and shor­ing for mine tunnels. all of whichwere essential [0 the recovery ofgold. Thus, the commercial ex­ploitation of the Black Hills foresthad begun with the gold rush of1876. In that year, entrepreneursshipped several small sawmills to theBlack I-!ills to supply rough boardsfor the fledgling gold mining in­dustry as well as local buildingconstruction. Congress helped western mining operationsobtain lumber by passing the Free Timber Act of 1878,authorizing miners to take for mining purposes "any timber ortrees growing or being on the public [minerallandsJ•..subject to such rules and regulations as the Secretary of theInterior may prescribe for the protection of the timber.» Thesecretary"s office established regulations prohibiting the cuttingof any tree less than eight inches in diameter and requiring thatbrush and treetops be disposed of in a manner that wouldprevent the spread of forest fires. Large.Iy unenforced. theseregulations did nothing to halt the quick destruction of theyellow, or ponderosa. pine forests in the Black Hills. Together.town builders and miners logged a billion and a half board feetfrom 1876 until 1898.

Accessible and well-timbered. the mountains permittedeasy exploitation, a fact that was not lost on miners. Henry M.Chance, a mining engineer who had traveled the region, wrotein 1891 that large tracts of the pine forest in the nonhern Black

•,

Hills had "been Cut on a large scale for use at the Homestakeand other mines ... [because the trees are) of inestimable valuein the development of their mineral resources, furnishing agood. cheap mine-timber." The southern Hills, which offeredlimited mining opportunities and therefore retained its trees.presented a much different landscape. "It is impossible,MChance obsen'Cd. u to travel through the Black Hills, especiallythrough their southern portion, without being charmed by thebeauty of the country."

In the first: )'t'aTS of logging, when timber was plentiful. onlythe best trees were taken. When timber became scarce and thesecond cunings began, lumbermen took the remaining trees,leaving large clear-cut areas. Often. only fifty pen:ent of eachtree was used and the rest discarded as waste. Competitionbetween mining companies contributed to the squandering oftimber; lumbermen sometimes cut logs only to preventanother mining company from getting them. Surplus logsoften roned at mining operations that had been abandoned.

fOREST HISTORY TODAY I \\)\)8 7

The mining industry's appetite for lumbIT is evidelll ou thelaud surrounding tht FathIT De Smtf Mille octweell Lead andDeadwood.

Henry S. Graves, a professional forester, noted that in thenorthern Hills, the cemer of the region's mining industry,timber was "almost entirely cut within a radius of 8 miles fromDeadwood." leaving the hillsides barren of trees.

While these wasteful lumbering practices altered the BlackHills landscape, logging was not solely responsible fortransforming the environment. Periodic natural fires alsothinned the yellow pine. As a result. the forest covering theBlack Hills was not extremely dense. and miners did not setfires to dear the land in order to conduct prospecting activitiesas they did in mallY parts of the Rocky Mountains. Instead.train engines throwing sparks and burning saw dust piles atlocal lumber mills were the main causes of man-made forestfires in the Black I-\ills. In the early years. once a fire startcd, itoften burned uncontrolled for weeks because no fire­protection program existed.

Many individuals and corponnions shared responSibility fordepleting the Black Hills yellow pine between 1875 and 1890,but as the largest consumer of the region's timber, HomestakeMining Company was the most visible violal.Or of the fewregulations that governed the cutting of trees on public lands.The company constructed its own narrow-gauge railroad in1881 to haul timber to Lead, the location of its gold-millingoperation. Named the Black Hills & Fort Pierre, it eventuallyextended to the small community of Piedmont on the east­central edge of the Hills. [n addition to the railroad, thecompany operated lumbering camps throughout the northernBlack Hills where loggers converted free trees into thecordwood building materials, and mine timbers essential toHomestake's profitable gold operation.

Eventually. Homestake's lumbering practices brought thecompany to coun because its loggers violated [he secretary ofthe interior's regulation forbidding the cutting from publiclands of trees under eight inches in diameter. The United Statesattorney filed charges against the company in 1894, claimingthar it had illegally cut 6.828.160 trees from public land andseeking $688,804 in damages plus interest. Attorneys for theplaintiffs asked to move the trial rrom Deadwood to Sioux Falls.in the eastern parr of the state. They cited the impossibility ofobtaining a fair trial in the Black Hills, where a large number ofthe residents had themselves engaged in unlawfully cuttingtimber at one time or another, The attempt to move the trialfailed, and the case was heard in Deadwood. r'OUl' years later,Judge John Carland ruled that the Homestake MiningCompany had to pay 575,000 in damages-a small penaltywhen one considers the value of the timber. Investigators forthe General Land Office, who administered the national forestsat the time, estimated the value of lumber that the companyhad taken illegally at ben'{een nvo and three million dollars.This early timber-cuning case served only as a prelude tofurther government intervention as the conservationmovement gathered momentum during the Progressive Era.

In 1896, the Secretary of the Interior Hoke Smith requestedthe National Academy of Sciences to prepare a reportoutlining a "rational forest policy" for the United States.Wolcott Gibbs, president of the academy. appointed a NationalForestry Commission and directed that group to locate sites forfuture forest reservcs on the public timber lands andrecommend that the United States assume a strongeradministrative posture over the proposed reserves.

8 FOREST HISTORY TODAY I 1998

Homestake MiningCompllny Imilr irs ownIlIlrrow-gallge wi/rOildto carry limber from thecompany's 1I0rlhITl1

Black Hills loggingcamps to its millillgopITalion aI Lead.

Several members of the National Forestry Commissionvisited the Black Hills and other public lands throughom theWest in the summer of 1896. Later the full commissionreported. "It is ~vid~nt that without Government protectionth~s~ forests [of the Black Hillsl. so far as th~ir producti\'~

capacity is concerned. will disappear at the end of a few years.and...th~ir destruction will entail serious injury and loss to theagricultural and mining population of western North andSouth Dakota.~ Presid~nt Gro\'~r Clevel.md followed part ofth~ commission's recommendations and on ZZ February 1897created thirteen Dew forest r~s~rv~s. Among them was theBlack Hills Forest Reserve, which consisted of 967.680 acres oftimbered lands. Because no provisions for the regulated cuttingof timber on the restricted land accompanied Cleveland'sorder, his proclamation in effect removed from public use allland and timber within the Black Hills reserve and the twelveother reserves created under the measur~.

Black Hills residents openly opposed the new reserve andwanted Cleveland's proclamation reversed, fearing that itwould disrupt both the local mining industry and the region'sgeneral economy. In addition, the local populace believed thatthe existence of the reserve denied individuals their rights tousc the public lands in fulfillment of th~ Am~ricandream. TheHomesu.ke Mining Company. a model of industrial successand one of North America's largest mining operations. alsoopposed the creation of the reserve. Cleveland's order wouldStop Homestake !Tom cutting !Tee lumber.

The omission of any provisions for the regulated use of thenew reserves created a storm of protest across the \Vest. In theface of pressure to abolish the reserve system altogether.Congress passed the Organic Administration Act ofJune 1897.assuring lumber consumers currently logging on public landsthat the newly created reserves would continue to supplytimber for their future needs. The legislation authorized thecreation of forest reserves not only (0 improve and protecttimber resources and water flow but also ~to furnish acominuous supply of timber for the usc and necessities ofcitizens."

The law empowered the secretary of the interior to draftregulations under which local domestic and industrialconsumers. including mining. lumbering, and grazingilHereSts, could use the forest. Congress authorized theSecretary of the lmerior to sell the dead or mature trees foundwithin the resen'e. The General Land Office would advertisethe evem, mark the trees for sale. and supervise the harvest.Anyone who illegally CUt or destroyed timber inside a reservewould r~ceive a maximum fine of five hundred dollars orIw~lv~ months in prison or both. In shott. governmentsupervision replaced me logger's choice. Instead of allowingindiscriminate cutting. gO\'emment offidals Sl:':leaed timber forh3n.'eSt.

Unfonunately. the solution w;u not going to be th3t simple.Gifford Pichot, visiting the Black Hills in the fall of 1897 asspecial forest ab'Cnt for Secretary of the Interior Cornelius N.Bliss, described the landscape betwe~n Deadwood and En­glewood in th~ nonhern Hills as a cutover and burned forest.In Bear Gulch near Spearfish, however. he discovered "abeautiful and vigorous forest, of great potential value. Bur it is

Tht profitability of Homt:sJah:'s minillg and milling operations.piclured herealxn't' tht town of Ltml, dtprndt:d lIpon a steadysupply of dttap timba

now full of locations for mining claims, which appear on thetrees.... [The] common report in the I-Hils ascribes theseclaims to men working for the Homestake." These fraudulentmining claims, which failed to display the requisite "discoveryholes," had been filed to circumvent the new CUllingrestriaions.

In an attempt to curtail this practice without alienatingcompany offidals, Gifford Pinchot, working for Secretary Bliss.presented Homestake Mining Company superintendentThomasJ. Grier and company attomey ~ideon C. Moody witha regulated harvest plan on 3 November 1897. This op­portunity was Pinchot's chance to advance scientific forestmanagement through winning the support of a large gold­mining operation that was also a large timber user. During athree-hour meeting, he convinced Homestake to send anapplication to the secretary of the interior asking permissionto purchase timber from the United States at a minimal costunder the terms of the 1897 Act. even though it did notofficially begin until 1 March 1898. Upon approval of theapplication, the company could legally cut trees on the reserveinstead of obtaining lumber through fraudulent means. Grierand Moody informed Pinchot that they supported. in principle.the concept of the forest reserve and that the company wouldalso help to fight forest fires. Homestake even offered to funda gO\'emment mechanism for selling timber. since none existedat the time. Once company officials understood Pinchot'sconcept of conservation, they had endorsed his plan. Neitherlitigation nor the threat of penalties had swayed Homestake in[he past. Rather, the company came to support conservationbecause it ensured continual use of the public forests atminimal cost. In short, conservation was in the company's bestinterest.

From this discussion between Pincho! and Homestakemanagement arose Timber Case o. I, the first government­regulated timber cut on a public forest reserve and the

FOREST HISTORY TODAY 1998 9

Gifford Pinchot worked with Homestake to develop a scientificmanagement plan for the Black Hil/.s Fowt Reserve.

beginning of modern regulated forestry practices in the UnitedStates. Important for Pinchot personally was the fact that hisscientific forestTy methods were on trial. The Timber Case No.1 experiment involved the Homesrake Mining Companypurchasing standing trees on the Black Hills Forest Reserve andthen cutting those trees under the supervision of a governmentforester. A1; Pinchot noted in a later report, "There is no otherforest in the United States in which practical forestry is moreurgently needed. or in which results of such importance maybe more easily achie....ed."

In early February 1898, Homestake Mining Companybegan to formulate its proposal for cutting rrees on the BlackHills reserve based on Pinchot's principles of forestmanagement. Homestake superintendent Thomas Grier tookthe next step toward putting the company's logging operationunder government regulation when he relinquished thefraudulent mining claims that Homestakc had filed in the BlackHills reserve. On 8 April 1898. Grier submitted the company'sformal application for the cutting of timber in the reserve tothe secretary of the interior. The application described the sizeand number of trees to be logged, the location of the cut (eightsections of land along the tracks of the company railroadabout four miles southwest of Nemo in the east-central BlackHills), and the amount of timber to be taken annually(measured in both linear and board feet).

Unfortunately. the Department of the (merior's GeneralLand Office, which was charged with overseeing all timberoperations. had no experience in regulating timber harvest.This situation created undue delay and hardship forHomestake. The General Land Office dispatched Special AgentC.W Greene in early May 1898 to report on the condition ofthe trees in the proposed cut area. Not until August of 1898,however. did the land office appoint a supervisor, H.G.Hamaker, for the Black Hills Forest Reserve and instruct himto investigate the area. The agency's acting commissioner

10 FOREST HISTORY TODAY I 199/1

ordered Hamaker to "bear in mind the forest reservationpolicy of this office to supply present and future needs fortimber within the state by providing for the use of timberwhich can be cut without detriment to the reservation," Thecommissioner further informed Hamaker not to overvalue thelumber because the government was not interested in deriving"a revenue therefrom, but to meet local demand ... forlegitimate purposes of trade." The minimum price was placedat one dollar per thousand board feet. Hamaker's duties alsoincluded supervising the disposal of treetops and other wasteand insuring that only mature trees were cut without strippingthe forest of all future sced trees.

Hamaker surveyed Homestake's proposed logging area inthe fall of 1898 and suggested that the mining company bepermitted to Cut only on the burned areas of the Black Hillsreserve. The General Land Office forest supervisor, C.W.Garbutt, dismissed that proposal, probably because Home­stake protested. The company cited the high cost of selectivelylogging dead trees and maintained that dead lumber was notstrong enough for mining purposes. R.O. Robinson. head ofHomestake's lumber operation, informed Hamaker, "In ourtimber business... we will be unable to make use of anythingbut the saw timber and the timber that will make .. , 11 and 6in flans [the large timbers used underground]," In addition, thecompany was converting to coal at the time the reserve wascreated and claimed it had no use for cordwood. Robinsonstated that the company would cut it and dispose of thetreelOps but only because the law so required.

Hamaker submitted his first written report on the pendingtimber cut in late April 1899, and it reflected Homestake'sposition on cordwood. His superior, William A. Richards ofthe General Land Office. ordered Hamaker to resubmit thcreport, demanding that Homestake pay for the cut cordwoodeven though the company claimed that it would not be usedbecause of declining need. In his amended report, Hamakernotcd that he wanted "the Government to get full pay for alltimber sold from this reserve," but that Homestake still refusedto pay for cordwood and would instead pile it with the brushrather than haul it from the logging area. Concerned withmaking the reserve defray the operating expenses, Hamakerwrote that he would make the company "pay for every cordthey cut." Eventually, Homestake purchased the cordwood.

(n making his amended report, Hamaker created anotherdelay when he suggested that the proposed CUI be open tobidders, permitting other lumber users an opportunity to getthe timber sale and soliciting bids even though it was obviousthat the cut would go to the Homestake. The area was thesame one the company had made application for in April 1898and was near their railroad line.

(n October 1899, Homestake officials submitted their bid atthe original price of one dollar per thousand board feet for allthe timber in the proposed Nemo cut. Because of a seriouswood shortage at the Lead stamp mil1s, the company hadasked permission to begin cutting on reserve land inSeptember 1899, Thai request was denied. Homestake wouldbe able to cut trees sixty days after the end of the advertisingdate, but that prospect was subject to a change if a higher bidcame from another operator, Predictably, howc"er, the General

fOREST HISTORY TODAY I 1998 11

Adapted from arucle In Sooth Dakota HIStory, VoILme 22IJr. 21J-n7. ~ntedwith permiSSion 01 the Sotrth Dablta State Hlstoneal Society

Homestake to take the dead timber. Garbutt's view prevailed,and the company lost the free dead timber issue.

After numerous requests for extensions, Homestake MiningCompany completed Timber Case No. I in 1908. Under thecontract, Homestake cut nearly fifteen million board feet oflumber and fifty-one hundred cords of wood. On average. thenumber of seed trees left standing after the companycompleted logging Case No. I was JUSt rwo per acre. or 48Zboard feet of timber; by comparison. the Forest Servicerequired Z.611 board feet pera~ for seed purposes followinga 1937 Black Hills harvest.

Even though it could not be cited as a model of modernforestry practices, Timber Case No. 1 inaugurated an era ofgovernment regulation over tree harvests on the public landsthat was essential to the conservation of the resource.Homestake, the company of waste during times of freetimber. became a company of frugality. In fact, the fear of atimber shortage in the Black Hills and the threat of having topurchase higher-priced imported lumber made local miningcompanies even more possessive and protective of the region'stimber. Shortly after the creation of Ihe Black Hills reserve, thelocal mining industry secured an embargo prohibiting Iheshipment of green cut timber from the national forest out ofSouth Dakota. The embargo ended in 191Z. the year Home·stake completed its conversion to electricity.

The mining companies of the Progressive Era have beendescribed as anticonservationist because they opposed theestablishment of forest reserves. The Homesrake experiencefC\'eals another facet of both the industry and the conservationmO\'ement. Company officials worked with Gifford Pinchot totum conservation into an economic asset. In fact, that alliancewas n:1atively easy to accomplish because the Black. Hills ForestReserve had been created essentially to enhance economicinterests through the efficient management of limitedresources. Thoughtless timber practices had the same effect onthe company's lumber supply as closing the forest to alllogging; without free lumber, mining costs increased and thestOckholders received smaller dividends. Company man­agement, once they understood the intent of the 1897 BlackHills Forest Reserve, supported the concept of a forest reserveand the conservation of timber resources through governmentre&"Ulation and efficient planning.

Lost forever in the process of establishing the forestrytheories behind Timber Case No, 1 was the pOSSibility ofmaintaining the Black Hills forest as untouched wilderness.Conservation, not preservation, was the hallmark of the Pr0­gressive Era. Both Homestake Mining Company officials andthe men trained in forestry practices advocated resourceconservation for the same end-enhancing the local economy,That alliance, which became the backbone of the nation'smodem conservation era, began in the Black Hills. Instead offighting the inc:vitable regulation imposed on the public forests.Homestake played an integra.! and understandably self.servingrole in supporting modem forestry practices. 0

Land Office awarded the bid to I-Iomcstake, and the companydeposited over five thousand dollars with the receiver of theGeneral Land Office in Rapid City for the timber to be loggednear Ncmo. Thus. morc than a year and a half afterHomcstakc submitted i[S application to CUI timber in the BlackHills Forest Reserve. Timber Case No.1 was finally under way.The experiment in refined. regul:ued logging in £he Black Hillshad begun. and the rest of the nation's lumber users watched.

On.s November 1899, General Land Office forest super­intendent C. W. Garbun directed J.F. Clark. rhe land officeforest ranger at Englewood. to mark trees eight inches indiameter and larger for cutting. In addition, Garbutt orderedClark to inform Homestake loggers that the company couldnot ~mo\'~ any logs until the ranger had measured the timber10 ensun: that trees suitable for sawing into large-dimensionmine timbers would not be used for cordwood. Further, theHomestake: loggers \\-'en: to stack treetops and other waste intopiles for burning.

Supervisors' instructions did not translate inlo workingpractices, however. The new forest managers wert': perplexedwhen it came to the problem of disposing of the dead anddown timber that was found throughout the Hills. Homesrakeofficials claimed that the price the government charged forlumber should not include "dead and down" or "dead andstanding" timber because it was worthless for mining pur­poses. After visiting the Nemo cut. land office inspector c.w.Greene agreed that most of the dead timber was worthless andthe prices charged we~ tOO high. He maintained, however,that the rate of one dollar per one thousand board feet ofgreen pine was fair. While at the logging site, Greene noticedanother problem: thick windfalls, which he feared would burnand destroy the live timber. In order to protect the forest frompotential fires. Glttne recommended that Homestake receivethe dead timber free for taking it out of the logging site. ForestSuperintendent Garbutt disagreed, contending that fifteencents a cord for dead-and-down trees and fifty cents a cord fordead-and-standing timber was incentive enough to encourage

! .~, ",§ ,.i..t

Homatak~'sgrtarat lllmbcT Mud wa.s for slrong limbtn to !4.UIlndC'Tground in tht mines.

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