Tag: History

History of Forest Research in the South, 1921-1933

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Communications  • 
For 40 years, Philip Wakeley researched southern pines for the USDA Forest Service. Wakeley was one of the first Forest Service R&D employees in the South. He began his career in 1924, at the Southern Forest Experiment Station in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Station was established in 1921, and in the 1990s would merge with…  More 

A History of Naval Stores, a Forgotten Forest Industry

by Jesse Brewer, SRS Science Communications Intern  • 
Before the advent of modern boats, wooden ships made up the navies of our world. Naval stores – pitch, tar, turpentine, and rosin – were used to caulk seams, preserve ropes, and maintain the seaworthiness of wooden ships. Naval stores also found many other uses prior to the modern petrochemical era. USDA Forest Service emeritus…  More 

100 Years of Forest Service Research in the South

by Sarah Farmer and Jennifer Moore Myers, SRS Science Communications  • 
In 2021, the Southern Research Station and all of USDA Forest Service celebrates the centennial of Forest Service research in the South. On July 1, 1921, the Forest Service established two new experiment stations. They were modest operations. The Southern Forest Experiment Station, headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, had only five employees. The Appalachian Forest…  More 

Remembering Glen Smalley

by SRS research foresters Callie Schweitzer, Stacy Clark, and Henry McNab  • 
On August 2, 2020, Glendon W. Smalley died at his home in Sewanee, Tennessee. He was 92. Smalley was an Emeritus scientist with the Southern Research Station. Smalley began working for the USDA Forest Service in 1953 on the Sam Houston National Forest in Texas, where he met his wife Mary, who passed in 2017.…  More 

Reforesting a Stumpscape

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Communications  • 
By 1930, the golden age of lumbering was over. “In about 25 years, millions of acres of old-growth forests had been harvested,” says U.S. Forest Service emeritus scientist James Barnett. “Land once covered with majestic stands of longleaf pines had become vast ‘stumpscapes.’” Cutover forests were bare, with little prospect of regeneration. Forests had been…  More 

Forestry’s Early Entrepreneurs

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Communications  • 
Before the Crossett Experimental Forest existed, two engineers-turned-lumbermen began rehabilitating the cutover ‘pineywoods.’ “In 1925, Leslie Pomeroy and Eugene Connor bought the Ozark Badger Lumber Company,” says U.S. Forest Service scientist Don Bragg. “The company was small and nearly defunct, and Pomeroy and Connor turned it into a profitable, long-term example of uneven-aged silviculture.” Bragg…  More 

Historic Camp Claiborne

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
Remembering the Sacrifice, a hardback book published by the U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS), richly illustrates the legacy of Camp Claiborne, a military site established on the Kisatchie National Forest (Kisatchie) during World War II. SRS emeritus scientist Jim Barnett wrote the book with co-authors Kisatchie deputy district ranger Douglas Rhodes and district…  More 

Wildfire Suppression in 1916

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
A window into the early years of fire fighting is available online due to the persistent efforts of Southern Research Station (SRS) scientist Jeff Prestemon. Roy Headley, who served as head of the Forest Service Division of Fire Control (precursor to today’s Fire and Aviation Management Office) for 25 years, started out with the Forest Service at…  More 

U.S. Forest Service’s First Woman Research Forester

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
Margaret Stoughton Abell Margaret Stoughton graduated from Iowa State College, Ames, Iowa, in 1930 with a bachelor’s degree in forestry. In June 1930, she joined the staff of the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station in Asheville, North Carolina, becoming the first woman forester in the Forest Service. Her name changed when she married Charles A. Abell, also…  More 

Historic Camp Claiborne, Louisiana

by Zoё Hoyle, SRS Science Delivery  • 
A new book published by the USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station richly illustrates the legacy of Camp Claiborne, a military site established on the Kisatchie National Forest during World War II.  SRS emeritus scientist Jim Barnett wrote the book with co-authors Kisatchie deputy district ranger Douglas Rhodes and district ranger Lisa Lewis. In 1939,…  More