FOREST PLAN: With so much ongoing discussion on the future of
the Allegheny National Forest, how interesting would it be to know
what was envisioned when it was created?

Get this: “Policy of the Forest Service is the establishment of
permanent forest communities, partly dependent upon agriculture and
partly on woods work. Local settlers always favored, and local
industries catered to. The class of forest products needed by local
plants will be the kind of material grown.”

That was the word back on Nov. 17, 1921, according to the McKean
County Democrat, a Smethport newspaper.

The article, sent to us by Jim Herzog of Smethport, is about the
initial purchase of land for the national forest and pointedly says
the government’s ownership of the surface would “enhance” the value
of oil and gas rights – among other things.

It’ll take us two days to tell you about this story which is
pertinent since the U.S. Forest Services is in the process of
revising its current management plan and the final document will
provide the direction of the forest for the next 15-20 years.

Needless to say, competing interests – timber, oil and gas,
environmental, recreation, wilderness, etc. – are already vying for
their respective pieces of the pie.

Our 1921 story datelined Warren offers a unique perspective of
how things were before a singe acre of land was purchased for this
national forest:

“Active work on the purchase of lands that will form part of the
new Allegheny National Forest to be created at the headwaters of
the Allegheny River by the United States Forestry Department will
be started soon. L.L. Bishop, who is in charge of the forest, has
spent the past summer in the city, and with Warren as headquarters
has worked out of here and has covered most of the ground that it
is expected to be included in the forest. His preliminary work has
been approved by the national and state governments and now the
actual buying of the land will be undertaken.”

Mr. Bishop, or so the story goes, met with “government
authorities” to go over the forest proposition and discuss
formation of a board of experts to go over the lands.

Two technical experts were expected to arrive in Warren to form
an “examining commission” to cover the various plots of ground
offered to the government. “They will have local men as
assistants,” it was reported.