DOCSLIB.ORG

Geri Vanderveer Bergen

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Geri Vanderveer Bergen AN INTERVIEW WITH GERI VANDERVEER BERGEN by Jacqueline S. Reinier July 5-7, 2000 Nevada City, California This project was supported with funds from the USDA Forest Service Office of Civil Rights, State and Private Forestry, National Forest System, and Office of Communications and produced in cooperation with the USDA Forest Service History Program. Copyright by the Forest History Society, Inc. Durham, North Carolina 2001 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTERVIEW HISTORY . i BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY. ii SESSION I, July 5, 2000 [Tape 1, Side A]. 1 Family background--High school years--Attending Katherine Gibbs Secretarial School--Marriage to Donald F. Eldridge--Move to Seattle-- Bearing and rearing three children--Moving to Reno--Dealing Blackjack at a casino--Importance of earlier trips to the mountains and national parks--Trip across the country to Seattle. [Tape 1, Side B]. 11 Camping in the Pacific Northwest--Taking an ecology course from University of Washington extension--Taking pre-forestry courses at the University of Nevada, Reno--Marriage to Donald C. Larson-- Moving to Berkeley and continuing pre-forestry courses at Oakland City College--Applying to the School of Forestry at the University of California, Berkeley. [Tape 2, Side A]. 22 Attending the UC Berkeley School of Forestry Summer Camp--Enrolling in the School of Forestry in 1960--Working part-time at the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station--Attending graduate school at UC Berkeley--Working for the Institute of Forest Genetics in Placerville. [Tape 2, Side B]. 31 Dissatisfaction with focusing on research--Getting a master’s degree in botany--Moving to Richmond--Membership in the Society of American Foresters--Rethinking career goals--Writing histories of Whitaker's Forest and Blodgett Forest--Offer of position in Women's Activities, Division of Information and Education, USDA Forest Service, Region 5. [Tape 3, Side A]. 41 Volunteer work with conservation-related activities in West Contra Costa County--Working as Public Information Officer in the Regional Office of Region 5. SESSION II, July 6, 2000 [Tape 3, Side B]. 46 More on work as Public Information Officer in the Regional Office of Region 5--Becoming Region 5 environmental coordinator--Sources of career support in the Forest Service. [Tape 4, Side A]. 55 Timing of the women’s movement and environmental movement--Working as regional environmental coordinator--Developing the regional program for environmental analysis--Interest in moving to a line position. [Tape 4, Side B]. 63 Becoming the first female line officer in the Forest Service as deputy forest supervisor on the Tahoe National Forest--Advantage of being a forester-- Overcoming resistance--Learning the job--The Tahoe National Forest. [Tape 5, Side A]. 72 Law enforcement--Fire management--Cultural resources management-- Working out a management style--Continuing activity in the Society of American Foresters--Becoming the first female forest supervisor as forest supervisor on the Tahoe National Forest. [Tape 5, Side B]. 82 Reconsidering and modifying earlier decisions--Working with the staff-- Hiring and promoting women--Problems for women in managing career and family. [Tape 6, Side A]. 89 Working with consent decree in Region 5--Developing and implementing Tahoe Land Management Plan--Managing budget to accomplish new stewardship goals-- Pacific Crest Trail--More on working with consent decree. [Tape 6, Side B]. 98 More on the consent decree--Looking for other positions--Working as the deputy staff director for environmental coordination in the Washington Office--Working on the Spotted Owl team. SESSION III, July 7, 2000 [Tape 7, Side A]. 107 Returning to working on a small staff after being forest supervisor-- Working with Chief Dale Robertson--Applying for another field job-- Shrinking staff in the Washington Office. [Tape 7, Side B]. 114 Women and minorities in the Washington Office--Uniqueness of Region 5-- Continuing activity in the Society of American Foresters--Retirement and return to Nevada City, California--The Nevada County Land Trust-- Experience as a woman forester--Female networking. [Tape 8, Side A]. 123 Advising and supporting women in the Forest Service--Role models-- More on the consent decree--Women and Forest Service culture--Sexual harassment in the Forest Service--Combining a Forest Service career with marriage and family--Triumphs and disappointments. [Tape 8, Side B]. 132 Advice for women in the Forest Service--Advice for men--Name change to Geri Vanderveer Bergen. INTERVIEW HISTORY Geri Vanderveer Bergen was interviewed by Jacqueline S. Reinier at Bergen’s home in Nevada City on July 5, 6, and 7, 2000. Dr. Reinier is a former history professor and director of the Oral History Program at California State University, Sacramento. She and her students have done previous interviewing of Region 5 USDA Forest Service employees in California. She also has taught Oral History Interviewing in the Capital Campus Public History Program at California State University, Sacramento and at Vista College in Berkeley, California. Prior to the interview she was able to conduct research in materials furnished by Linda Lux, Forest Service Historian for Region 5, and in the library of the Pacific Southwest Regional Office of the USDA Forest Service in Vallejo, California. The interview was conducted in Bergen’s living room in Nevada City. Choosing her words carefully, the interviewee described a transitional period during which the Forest Service has undergone a great deal of change. When she was trained as a forester at the University of California, Berkeley, very few women had enrolled in the School of Forestry. As a woman, she was directed toward a career in research, and her first full- time position with the Forest Service was Public Information Officer in the area of Women’s Activities. Yet she shaped her positions as she held them and, drawing on her background in volunteer conservation activity, she was able to become environmental coordinator for Region 5. Eventually she obtained the field work she had always desired and became the first female line officer in the Forest Service, first as deputy forest supervisor and then as forest supervisor of the Tahoe National Forest. An active member of the Society of American Foresters, she has carefully made in her way in a large previously male-dominated federal agency. The interview was transcribed by Carol Niehus in Berkeley, California. Reinier edited the transcript, first checking the verbatim manuscript against the original tape recordings, and then editing it for punctuation, paragraphing, and spelling, and verifying proper names. Insertions by the editor are bracketed. The interviewer also prepared the introductory materials and names list. In December 2000, Bergen was forwarded a copy of the transcript for her approval. She kept the transcript for almost a year, finally returning it in October, 2001. During that time she made the decision to omit in the transcript some of the material on the tapes. Places where these omissions have been made are indicated in brackets. Material added by Bergen also is bracketed. Bergen’s personal papers are still in her possession. The original tape recordings of the interview, the draft transcript annotated by Bergen, and additional copies of the final transcript are located at the Forest History Society, Inc., 701 Vickers Avenue, Durham, North Carolina, 27701. BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY Geraldine Marcia Bergen was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1930, from where her father, Reginald V. Bergen, commuted to Wall Street to work for the J.P. Morgan investment company. Raised in a family with traditional gender roles, she was not expected to attend college. After her graduation with a straight-A record from Nutley Senior High School in New Jersey in 1948, she attended the Katherine Gibbs School in New York City and took a secretarial course. In June, 1949, she married Donald F. Eldridge, and traveled with him to Seattle, Washington, where he took a position with the Boeing Airplane Company. Although she worked as a secretary for a period of time, Geri became a full-time mother with the arrival of her three children, Guy Robert Eldridge born in 1952, Katherine Ann Eldridge, born in 1953, and Marcia Sue Eldridge, born in 1954. After her divorce from Donald Eldridge, she moved with her children to Reno, Nevada in 1957, and supported them for two and a half years by dealing blackjack at a casino. When Geri enrolled in the University of Nevada, Reno, in 1958, she had already decided to pursue a pre-forestry curriculum. As a child, she had delighted in trips to the mountains with her family. On her trip across the country and sojourn in the Pacific Northwest, she had visited National and State Parks, and while in Seattle took an extension ecology class from the University of Washington. Able to concentrate on her studies when her children went to live with their father, she earned an almost straight-A record and focused on her goal of admission to the School of Forestry at the University of California, Berkeley. Geri married Donald C. Larson in 1959 and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where she continued her rigorous curriculum at Oakland City College. By the summer of 1960 she was ready to attend the summer camp required by the UC Berkeley School of Forestry. The second woman ever to participate in the summer camp, Geri found herself entering the program with forty young men. Experiencing considerable stress in the new situation, she gradually learned to shed some of the assumptions with which she had been raised and to become “one of the gang.” As only the eighth woman to enroll in the program, Geri achieved a distinguished record at the School of Forestry, earning membership in Phi Beta Kappa and Xi Sigma Pi, the honorary forestry fraternity, as well as honorable mention for the University medal. As an undergraduate and graduate student she received the Whitt Brothers Hardwood Industry Scholarship in 1961, the John H.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Mark Your Calendar
    MARK YOUR CALENDAR OLD FORESTS, NEW MANAGEMENT: CANADIAN INSTITUTE OF FORESTRY–100TH ANNUAL CONSERVATION AND USE OF OLD-GROWTH FORESTS GENERAL MEETING AND CONFERENCE IN THE 21ST CENTURY September 7–10, 2008. Fredericton, New Brunswick. Contact: February 17–21, 2008. Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. An interna- CIF, 151 Slater Street, Suite 504 Ottawa, ON K1P 5H3; Phone: tional scientific conference hosted by the CRC for Forestry, 613-234-2242; Fax: 613-234-6181; [email protected]; http://www.cif- Forestry Tasmania, and the International Union of Forest ifc.org/english/e-agms.shtml. Research Organizations. Contact: Conference Design, Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006, Australia; Phone: +61 03 6224 3773; SOCIETY OF AMERICAN FORESTERS [email protected]; www.cdesign.com.au/oldforests2008/. NATIONAL CONVENTION November 5–9, 2008. Reno, Nevada. Contact: William V. Brumby, ASSOCIATION OF BRITISH COLUMBIA FOREST Society of American Foresters; Phone: 301-897-8720, ext. 129; PROFESSIONALS CONFERENCE AND ANNUAL GENERAL [email protected]; www.safnet.org. MEETING February 20–22, 2008. Penticton, British Columbia. Theme: “Facets AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY of Our Future Forests.” Contact: ExpoFor 2008, Association of ANNUAL MEETING BC Forest Professionals, 1030–1188 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, February 25–March 1, 2009. Tallahassee, Florida. Contact: Fritz BC V6E 4A2. Phone: 604-687-8027; Fax: 604-687-3264; info@expo- Davis, local arrangements chair, at [email protected]; www.aseh.net/ for.ca; http://www.expofor.ca/contactus/contactus.htm. conferences. AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY FIRST WORLD ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY CONVENTION ANNUAL MEETING August 4–9, 2009. Copenhagen, Denmark. Sponsored by the March 12–16, 2008.
    [Show full text]
  • Forest History Today Spring/Fall 2014
    A PUBLICATION OF THE FOREST HISTORY SOCIETY SPRING/FALL 2014 VOL. 20, NOS. 1 & 2 MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT “Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs.”–Ansel Adams STEVEN ANDERSON hen Gifford Pinchot hired the first come from both the FHS Photograph Collec - forest rangers in the U.S. Forest tion and from institutional and individual col- WService, he outfitted them with cam- laborators. By providing an authoritative site eras and asked them to document what they did on the subject, we expect to identify previously and saw. He knew the power the photographs unknown repeat photographic pairs and could wield as he fought for funds to manage sequences, promote the creation of new repeat the nation’s forests and sought public support sets, and foster interest in the future uses of for new policies. No one can deny that visual repeat photography. images have played an important role in the con- Sally Mann, a renowned American landscape servation and environmental movements. and portrait photographer, said, “Photographs That is why, from its beginnings in 1946, the open doors into the past, but they also allow a Forest History Society has collected and pre- look into the future.” We hope that providing served photographs of early lumbering tech- access to and stimulating more work in repeat niques, forest products, forest management, photography will help students, teachers, jour- and other subjects. The FHS staff has already helped thousands nalists, foresters, and many others gain insight that can elevate of students, writers, and scholars find historic photographs that our awareness of conservation challenges.
    [Show full text]
  • Fall 2009 Arrowhead Newsletter
    Arrowhead • Fall 2009 1 Arrowhead Fall 2009 • Vol. 16 • No. 4 The Newsletter of the Employees & Alumni Association of the National Park Service Published By Eastern National FROM THE DIRECTOR Port Chicago Naval Magazine s I write this A column, my first as National N MEM Added to Park System Park Service direc- tor, I am remember- he National Park System has gained cisco, hurled debris in the air, obliterat- resume loading ships for the war effort. ing my confirmation ed both ships and killed everyone at the just a few weeks Ta new park: Port Chicago Naval Many refused to continue their work ago. Although I Magazine National Memorial in Con- waterfront. To this day, because of the without safety training, and the U.S. accepted this re- cord, Calif. With President Obama’s tragedy, ignition sources for bombs and Navy charged 50 of these men with sponsibility humbled by its impor- signing of the Defense Authorization guns are loaded separately on carriers. “conspiring to make mutiny.” They tance and excited about the Act, on Oct. 28 Port Chicago became The disaster caused the greatest loss of were tried, convicted and imprisoned. possibilities, something happened the 392nd unit of a system fondly life on the home front during World War After the war, they were released, grant- that has happened countless referred to as “America’s best idea.” II. Three-hundred-twenty men died, and ed clemency, allowed to complete their times throughout my career—when “The addition of Port Chicago demon- almost 400 others were injured. Of the military service and given honorable dis- I thought it couldn’t get any strates a commitment to make America’s 320 killed, 202 were African Americans.
    [Show full text]
  • The American Tree Farm System Celebrated Its 70Th Anniversary
    In 2011, the American Tree Farm System celebrated its 70th anniversary. After a controversial beginning, it is now an important player in efforts to mitigate climate change. The American Tree Farm System GROWING STEWARDSHIP FROM THE ROOTS “ ill the thing before it spreads,” U.S. Forest Service Chief Lyle Watts allegedly declared. Watts and his assistant C. Edward Behre tried to kill the thing in K 1941. They failed, and it spread from the West, into the South, and eventually all across America. The “thing” was the American Tree Farm System (ATFS), which is now 71 years old and America’s oldest family-owned federal regulation is certainly not to its discredit,” according to woodland sustainability program, covering more than 26 million the journal. privately owned acres. Why were Watts and Behre against tree farms in 1941? PUSH FOR FEDERAL REGULATION Encouraging private owners to grow continuous crops of trees The strong push for federal regulation of forestry had begun in (as tree farming was defined) probably was not abhorrent to them. the 1930s, during America’s Great Depression. Federal forestry What they disliked was substituting private cooperation for public leaders believed that they should closely regulate the private sector, regulation. They saw tree farming as a move to decrease pressure and many people agreed. The National Industrial Recovery Act for federal regulation. of 1933, for example, had authority to coordinate major industries Watts and Behre asked the Society of American Foresters to to set prices, working conditions, and (in the case of forest indus- question the ethics of members who participated in tree farming.
    [Show full text]
  • DOCUMENT RESUME ED 297 144 CE 050 651 TITLE Washington
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 297 144 CE 050 651 TITLE Washington State Traffic Safety Education Curriculum Guide. A Master Guide for Implementing a Performance-Based Curriculum. INSTITUTION Washington Office of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Olympia. Div. of Vocational-Technical and Adult Education Services. PUB DATE Apr 87 NOTE 338p. PUB TYPE Guides Classroom Use - Guides (For Teachers) (052) EDRS PRICE MFO1 /PC14 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Driver Education; High Schools; Motor Vehicles; *Safety Education; Signs; Traffic Accidents; Traffic Control; *Traffic Safety ABSTRACT This guide for implementing performance-based curriculum is intended to teach students decision-making driving. Heavy emphasis is put on the tasks and concepts involving traffic flow tasks (interacting with other highway users) and the functions and factors that affect that interaction. It is a "90-hour" guide, that is, the average student needs about 90 hours of classroom and independent study time to complete the activities, exclusive of in-car lessons and practice. Nineteen modules are providedm introduction to the highway transportation system, preparing and controlling, maneuvering in limited space; signs, signals, and pavement markings; human functions; intersections; traffic flow; lane changes; passing on two-lane roadway; freeway driving; complex driving; obtaining a driver's license; avoiding and minimizing impact, vehicle malfunctioning; vehicle characteristics, motorcycle awareness, nonmoturized traffic; roadway variations; limited visibility, lessened traction, special driving conditions; legal responsibilities, post-crash responsibilities; planning for travel; internal factors, physical factors, alcohol and ,ther drugs; vehicle maintenance; and system improvement, fuel conservation. Each module consists of a list of objectives; student learning activities (classroom group and independent study); teacher-led discussion outline; overhead transparency masters; study sheets; and worksheets.
    [Show full text]
  • Publications of the Forest History Society
    Publications of the Forest History Society These are books and films available from the Forest History Society The Forest Service and the Greatest Good: A Centennial History, on our website at www.ForestHistory.org/Publications. James G. Lewis, paper $20.00 Tongass Timber: A History of Logging and Timber Utilization in Southeast From THE FOREST HISTORY SOCIETY Alaska, James Mackovjak, $19.95 Issues Series—$9.95 each View From the Top: Forest Service Research, R. Keith Arnold, Books in the Issues Series bring a historical context to today’s most pressing M. B. Dickerman, Robert E. Buckman, $13.00 issues in forestry and natural resource management. These introductory texts are created for a general audience. With DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS Changing Pacific Forests: Historical Perspectives on the Forest Economy of the Pacific Basin America’s Fires: A Historical Context for Policy and Practice, Stephen J. Pyne , John Dargavel and Richard Tucker, paper $5.00 David T. Mason: Forestry Advocate America’s Forested Wetlands: From Wasteland to Valued Resource, , Elmo Richardson, $8.00 Bernhard Eduard Fernow: A Story of North American Forestry Jeffrey K. Stine , American Forests: A History of Resiliency and Recovery, Andrew Denny Rodgers III, $5.00 Origins of the National Forests: A Centennial Symposium Douglas W. MacCleery , Canada’s Forests: A History, Ken Drushka Harold K. Steen, cloth $10.00, paper $5.00 Changing Tropical Forests: Historical Perspectives on Today’s Challenges in Forest Pharmacy: Medicinal Plants in American Forests, Steven Foster Central and South America Forest Sustainability: The History, the Challenge, the Promise, , Harold K. Steen and Richard P.
    [Show full text]
  • Temple - Inland 100 Years from Dream to Fortune 200
    fe::Tvh.J TEMPLE - INLAND 100 YEARS FROM DREAM TO FORTUNE 200 With a population ofless than 4,500, in Arkansasin 1881.Twelveyears later, Diboll, Texas, doesn't have a Wal-Mart, he reorganized the company under a McDonald's, or a movie theater. But it Texas law. does have something larger communi- After stepping off an HE&WT train ties envy: a Fortune 200 forest products with only a satchel and a plan to build a company of its own. sawmill, Temple persuaded the Diboll and its founder, Temple- Joseph S. Copes heirs to sell him 7,000 Inland, Ine., jointly celebrate their cen- acresoftimberland. Oneoftheheirs,J.C. tennial in 1994, an observance reaching Diboll, referred to the land as "hog mill back to the earliest days of the forest terrain," meaning wild hogs had to be products industry in Texas. run out before a sawmill could be built. More than 100 years ago, East Texas By June 1894, Temple had built a forests stretched for hundreds of miles, sawmill and a town named for Diboll. The Temple-Inland plant, ca. 1960. All broken only by rivers, fields, and a few Buyingpine timber for about 75 cents a photos accompanying this article are from villages. In the 1880s, the railroads, seek- thousand board feet,Templeoftenwrote the Forest History Society archives. ingto link the Gulf Coast with the Texas out purchase deeds on paper sacks and inter\or, began to lay tracks through the forests, providing piecesof 1x 12lumber in the rush to getthe mill rolling.Asthe lumbermen more efficient transportation to the growing railroads expanded, Texas cities began to grow and Temple's cities.
    [Show full text]
  • The Leadership Challenge
    Praise for the Fifth Edition of The Leadership Challenge “My heart goes out to Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner with the deepest gratitude for this book, the most powerful leadership resource available. It is providential that at a time of the lowest level of trust and the highest level of cynicism, The Leader- ship Challenge arrives with its message of hope. When there are dark days in our lives, Kouzes and Posner will shine a light.” —Frances Hesselbein, former CEO, Girl Scouts of the USA; author, My Life in Leadership “Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner have taken one of the true leadership classics of the late twentieth century and made it freshly relevant for today’s twenty-first century leaders. It is a must-read for today’s leaders who aspire to contribute in a more significant way tomorrow.” —Douglas R. Conant, New York Times bestselling author, TouchPoints; retired CEO, Campbell Soup Company “For twenty-five years, the names Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner have been synony- mous with leadership. There is a reason for that. This book, in its new and updated form, demonstrates that leadership is a challenge you must win every day. It shows that every leader is unique, with his or her own style, and it helps you find your style. But the real beauty of this book is that it does not just tell you about leader- ship. It takes you by the hand, and walks you through the steps necessary to be better at what you do. It also gives you the confidence to take the kinds of risks every leader needs to take to succeed.
    [Show full text]
  • Forest History Society, Inc. 701 Vickers Avenue, Durham, North Carolina 277011 Telephone (919) 682-9319
    Forest History Society, Inc. 701 Vickers Avenue, Durham, North Carolina 277011 Telephone (919) 682-9319 June 18. 1993 .n\ TMauree?^\Finnerty nvr •ANyplyjffpic National Park rA^\ yVyA^OO E- Park Avenue 8®S V " Port Angeles, WA 98362-6798 Dear Superintendent Finnerty: Thank you for the opportunity to review and evaluate the four documents related to the question of historical presence of mountain goats in Olympic National Park. I am persuaded that mountain goats were historically absent in the area. All documents were useful, but I am most influenced by Randall Schalk's ethnographic and archaeological work. From his and similar works, I have come to understand just how thoroughly native peoples made full "use" of their environment. If goats had existed on the Peninsula during the time period studied, a resource that valuable would have left abundant evidence. The least persuasive work by far was that of Professor Lyman's. To be blunt, I found it to be a poorly written, poorly edited, and poorly published bit of speculation of what might possibly be found if there were enough grants to support enough digs. This piece is akin to a historian lamenting that if the courthouse had not burned down with all the records it supposedly contained, that no doubt someone could write a fine history that would answer all of our questions. If life were only that simple. Ms. Schultz's historical work was most competent and readable, and also persuasive. I found it to be properly balanced, given her assignment. She reviewed the logical sources, dealing convincingly with the occasional references to goats.
    [Show full text]
  • Bringing Forestry to Texas
    In 2015 the Texas A&M Forest Service marked one hundred years of forestry in the Lone Star State. This article focuses on the agency’s first quarter-century (1915–1940), its visionary founder W. Goodrich Jones, and the first two state foresters—John H. Foster and Eric O. Siecke—who were responsible for laying a solid foundation. Bringing Forestry to Texas THE FIRST QUARTER-CENTURY OF THE TEXAS A&M FOREST SERVICE s the nineteenth century was coming to a close, the virgin forests of longleaf pine in East Texas were rapidly disappearing. Most had been felled in fifty- A plus years of cut-out-and-get-out lumbering. Extensive acreages of stumps, burned-over landscapes, and streams filled with silt provided testimony to careless logging practices, frequent unsuppressed wildfires, and Getting Arbor Day on the calendar was a relatively easy job. lack of reforestation. It was the story of America’s forests, this Bringing forestry to Texas proved more difficult for Jones. In 1899, time playing out in the Lone Star State. at the urging of Bernhard E. Fernow, head of the United States W. Goodrich Jones, a banker from Temple, Texas, followed in Division of Forestry (which became the U.S. Forest Service), Jones the footsteps of many other pioneering conservationists. He was surveyed the pine forests of East Texas by horse, buggy, and train. not a trained forester, but his life experiences had created a deep In his 1900 report, the man later recognized as the Father of passion for trees and a deeper concern for the future of forests.
    [Show full text]
  • Timber for the Comstock
    In October 2008, the Society of American Foresters will hold its convention in Reno, Nevada. Attendees can visit nearby Virginia City, the home of America’s first major “silver rush,” the Comstock Lode. Virginia City was built over one of North America’s largest silver deposits and a “forest of underground timbers.” Demand for timber was satisfied by the large forest at the upper elevations of the Sierra Nevada, especially around Lake Tahoe. After discussing historical background, this article offers a short forest history tour based on Nevada historical markers and highlighting Lake Tahoe logging history. TIMBER FOR THE COMSTOCK old was discovered in western Nevada around 1850 by prospectors on their way to California. In early 1859, James Finney and a small group of G prospectors discovered the first indications of silver ore near present-day Virginia City. Later that year other prospectors located the ledge of a major gold lode. Fellow prospector Henry Comstock claimed the ledge Over the next twenty years, the 21⁄2-mile deposit of high-grade as being on his property and soon gained an interest in the area, ore would produce nearly $400 million in silver and gold, create and the strike became known as the Comstock Lode. Finney, several fortunes, and lead to Nevada’s early admission to the nicknamed “Old Virginny” after his birthplace, reportedly named Union during the Civil War, even though it lacked the popula- the collection of mining tents in honor of himself during a tion required by the Constitution to become a state.2 In 1873, a drunken celebration.
    [Show full text]
  • Mountaineers and Rangers
    United States Department of Agriculture Mountaineers Forest Service and Washington, D.C. FS-380 Rangers A History of Federal Forest Management in the Southern Appalachians 1900-81 Shelley Smith Mastran and Nan Lowerre Manager and Researcher, and Researcher Maximus, Inc., McLean, Va. April 1983 Foreword In 1978 the former Head of the Forest Service's History The source of each print is given in the description beneath Section, David A. Clary, conceived the idea of doing a history each photograph, where it appears in the text. The designation of the impact of Federal natural resource management on the "NA:95G" means it is an official Forest Service photograph, peoples of the Southern Appalachians. The contract was and the negative is held in the National Archives collection; awarded July 25 that year under competitive bidding to the number following is the number of that photo. The Maximus, Inc., in McLean, Va. designation "Forest Service photo" means the negative with We believe this study to be an important addition to the the number following is still retained by the Forest Service in literature on the Forest Service and the Southern Washington, DC. Appalachians. It is only the second scholarly publication to Sources of data for this study, including tables, are fully take a regional approach to Forest Service history, and it is the provided in the reference notes following each chapter and in first to explicitly examine how Forest Service programs have the 11 lists in the Bibliography. The authors wish to thank affected local populations. We hope that it will stimulate other personnel of the National Archives, Washington, DC;' the individuals, both in and outside the Forest Service, to write Washington National Records Center, Suitland, Md.; the similarly significant histories.
    [Show full text]