Ponderosa Pine in the Southwest 



349 



1/2 billion board feet on the 184,000 

 acres of national forest land on the 

 Kaibab Plateau. For centuries only In- 

 dians used it. In the 1870's Mormons 

 settled in the lowlands, 30 miles or so 

 to the north near the Utah-Arizona 

 line, and operated one or two small 

 sawmills intermittently. 



Highways first tapped the Kaibab 

 Plateau soon after the Marble Can- 

 yon bridge was completed across the 

 Colorado River in 1928. The plateau 

 is the home of the famous Kaibab 

 mule deer herd; there, also, Theodore 

 Roosevelt hunted the mountain lion. 

 It is an isolated region from the cen- 

 ter of the timber, the nearest railroad 

 on the north is 140 miles away; on 

 the south, 1 75 miles. 



No wonder, then, that the large 

 body of ponderosa pine on the Kai- 

 bab Plateau was relatively untouched 

 until the Second World War. Good 

 highways, good trucks, the scarcity of 

 good timber, and high prices came to- 

 gether at about the same time. Tim- 

 ber was sold, mills were installed, and 

 for the first time lumber moved to the 

 outside world. Now lumber moves on 

 large trucks over the Marble Canyon 

 bridge, across the desert, past the 

 wind-swept hogans of the Navajo In- 

 dians, and thence to markets over the 

 Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe. The 

 closest mill to the Santa Fe Railroad 

 is 165 miles; the farthest, 205 miles. 

 The development is typical of the 

 western pioneer days, but it happened 

 in the early 1940's. 



The future for the Kaibab Plateau 

 timber looks bright. The opportunity is 

 there for an integrated manufacturing 

 and remanufacturing industry on a 

 substantial and continuing scale. New 

 highways will reduce the distance to 

 the railroad. After 80 years, the local 

 people are assured of employment op- 

 portunities in a basic manufacturing 

 industry. At the same time, the other 

 values of wildlife, recreation, water 

 production, and grazing of livestock 

 need not be impaired if the timber har- 

 vest is orderly and management of the 

 forest is careful. 



In much of central Arizona and in 

 northern New Mexico the operations 

 are small. Most of the sawmills have a 

 circular head saw and annually cut 

 l /z million to 5 million board feet of 

 rough green lumber. They are located 

 in interior forest communities, where 

 the inhabitants depend on the local 

 resources of water, forage, and the 

 harvesting and manufacture of forest 

 crops. 



A TYPICAL CASE is the operation at 

 Vallecitos, in the Carson National For- 

 est in New Mexico. The established 

 operator there cut annually a million 

 board feet or less before 1948. Trucks 

 hauled the rough green lumber 63 

 miles to the nearest railroad shipping 

 point. Employment was furnished to 

 8 or 10 persons. The sawmill was poor- 

 ly located in relation to the available 

 timber and existing roads. 



Technicians were called in to an- 

 alyze the situation at Vallecitos. They 

 decided the annual cut should be not 

 less than l/ 2 million board feet. The 

 operator said he would relocate the 

 mill, install seasoning and finishing fa- 

 cilities, construct a small box factory 

 or cut-up plant to utilize low-grade 

 material, and continue to use local 

 labor and furnish lumber at regular 

 prices to people nearby if he were as- 

 sured a stable supply of timber. If that 

 were done, employment would be in- 

 creased up to 400 percent, the annual 

 wages would be increased by as much 

 as $30,000, and the communities of 

 Vallecitos, Canyon Plaza, and Petaca 

 would be helped materially. 



Accordingly, under section 3 of the 

 Sustained- Yield Unit Act, steps were 

 taken to establish a Federal Sustained- 

 Yield Unit. At the required public 

 hearing on the proposal, in December 

 1947, more than 100 residents attended 

 to get information, ask questions, and 

 make comments. They agreed that the 

 unit would be a good thing. 



On January 21, 1948, the Vallecitos 

 Federal Sustained-Yield Unit was for- 

 mally established, the first of its kind 

 in the United States. In the year since, 



