Posts filed under: History

The Weeks Act: The Needed Legislation for National Forests in the East

A hundred years ago, the White Mountain region was a different sight. Hundreds of photographs and articles depict a region of mountain sides stripped of trees from what was once virgin forest, streams choked with silt from eroding hillsides, and ash from forest fires falling on nearby towns. Click to read!

Yale Symposium on Weeks Act Centennial Announced, June 7th and 8th

[ June 7, 2011 8:30 am to June 8, 2011 5:00 pm. ] Join the USDA Forest Service, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and the Pinchot Institue for Conservation on June 7th and 8th at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut for a symposium in commemoration of the Weeks Act Centennial and the United Nations 2011 International Year of the Forest.

100th Year of Restoration

Follow the link to view the USDA Forest Service’s poster for our forests’ 100th Year of Restoration
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Celebrating the Centennial of the Weeks Act

In 1911, the Forest Service bought 8,456 acres for a price of 7 dollars per acre. These were the first lands acquired under the authority of the Weeks Act in north Georgia. These earliest national forest lands were managed as part of the Cherokee National Forest. On July 9, 1936, these lands became part of the newly established Chattahoochee National Forest.

White Mountain National Forest – “Weeks Act”

A video containing a short history of the White Mountain National Forest.

Historical Maps; A White Mountain National Forest in the Making

Visit WhiteMountainHistory.org’s page for a feature article on White Mountain National Forest maps.
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Learn about and see the progress that was made to acquire lands by the National Forest Reservation Commission. Also included is the 1918 Proclamation establishing the White Mountain National Forest.

1936 Weeks Act Commemorative WMNF Map

Courtesy WhiteMountainHistory.org, Collection of Kurt Masters

“Environmental Legacies: Land-Clearing, Forest Use, and Conservation in Northern New England, 1820-1920”

First Annual Stanley Russell Howe Lecture: “Environmental Legacies: Land-Clearing, Forest Use, and Conservation in Northern New England, 1820-1920” by Dr. Richard W. Judd, Col. James C. McBride Professor of History at the University of Maine. P

The Weeks Act and New Hampshire: A Centennial Retrospective

Dear Colleagues: The Weeks Act, named for its floor manager Rep. John Weeks (R-MA), and which President William Howard Taft signed into law on March 1, 1911, gave the federal government the authority to create national forests across the east, changing the face of New England through the establishment of the White and Green Mountains national forests. It is thus one of the nation’s most important pieces of environmental legislation. But almost no knows anything about it.

How the Weeks Act Changed the Country (even California)

A pop quiz: what do the Six Rivers, Tahoe, and Toiyabe, Cleveland, San Bernardino, and Angeles National Forests have in common? If you said they were all located in California, give yourself a gold star. But they share something else in common–they are the strange recipients of funding sanctioned through the Weeks Act, which President William Howard Taft signed into law on March 1, 1911.

Wild by Law- Char Miller on the Weeks Act

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Due to the 100th anniversary of the Weeks Act, stories such as this in the Republican American are floating around the New England press.
Char Miller contributes Weeks Act Forest Planning[1] essay called “Wild by Law.” Longer than a blog post, but well worth the read, and a gentle reminder that public lands ideas, […]

Century of Weeks: How the WMNF Came to Be

Enter John W. Weeks, native of Lancaster, New Hampshire, who by 1910 was a Congressman from Massachusetts. It fell to Weeks to usher through Washington what we know today as Weeks Law, or the Weeks Act, which extends Congress’s authority over navigable rivers and rivers to purchasing the lands that protect those waters. Today’s 49 eastern National Forests were born when the Weeks Act was signed in to law March 1, 2011.