WSP03489

• File Number: 7630.285
• Description: Wild and Scenic - General
• State: CO
• Basin: Statewide
• Date: 6/1/1967
• Author: Donald N Baldwin
• Title: Wilderness-Concept and Challenge - Reprinted from Colorado Magazine - Summer 1967
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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Carhart's "1922" report, For example, a letter from the Washington Office to Region 9,
written in 1955 stated: "We have the original copy of Mr, Arthur Carhart's report entitled
'Recreation Plan, Superior National Forest' submitted May, 1922 and approved by District
Forester Peck on November 8, 1922,"52 That statement, in itself, constitutes irrevocable
evidence that Carhart's plan was formally approved two years before the one proposed by
Aldo Leopold. Leopold's plan for the Gila National Forest was not formally approved until
June 3, 1924,53

Carhart's 1919 and 1921 reports regarding the Superior, after some seven to nine years
of seeming to be dormant, had in reality remained quite alive. They had stood the test of
time. A letter to Carhart from the Assistant District Forester, District 2, in Denver, dated
February 23, 1928, brought out this point:

Contrary to your impression, the recreation plan you conceived for the Superior has not been
allowed to accumulate dust but rather has been a very live document and as time has gone by has
formed the basis for the preparation of the controlling plan governing recreation and other activities
within that Forest. While the wording in that plan may not be identical with that used by you, yet
the fundamental policies are the same, which I presume will be the source of some satisfaction to
you. . . . I believe our present plan provides for the utmost in coordinated use and tor the ultimate
development for the most attractive recreation ground that will meet with your ideas, to a large
Bl<tent, of the full capitalization of the social value of a Forest of this character.54

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Moreover, in the report of the forester for the year 1928, newlv-aooointed Chief Forester
R. y, Stuart remarked that "the study of the so-called 'wilderness areas' or areas believed to
be most useful if retained in a condition of relative undevelopment, continued throughout
the year, and in one district was completed,"55

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The foregoing reference to the study of the so,called "wilderness areas" that had
continued throughout the year, and that "in one district was completed," failed to state
that an area or areas had been established or designated, To that year, 1928, the only area
which had come to the attention of the Washington Office of the Forest Service and to the
Secretary of Agriculture had been the border lake country in the Superior National Forest,
Acting Forester Sherman had approved the recreation plan for the Superior National Forest,
June 30, 1926, and that plan was given final approval by Secretary of Agriculture Jardine on
September 17, 1926,56 The files of the Gila National Forest, District 3, Albuquerque, New
Mexico, reflected no coordination with the Washington Office of the Secretary of
Agriculture between 1924 and 1928 concerning the "wilderness area" in that Forest,57

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The movement to establish wilderness areas which began in District 2 during mid-1919
had come to the attention of Assistant District Forester Leopold, District 3, in that year,
Again in the late summer of 1921 while Carhart was still writing his plan of management for
the Superior National Forest, Leopold visited the Denver District Office of the Forest
Service and the two men talked for several hours about wilderness preservation in National
Forests. Yet it was not until late 1921 that Leopold began writing on this subject,58 His
first article dealing with the wilderness concept was published in November 1921. There
followed a hiatus of four years, His next published articles on the subject of the wilderness

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