NATIONAL FORESTS OF WYOMING 23 



dred deer on the Shoshone Xational Forest, in addition to elk and 

 mountain sheep, As deputy game wardens, forest rangers assist 

 State officers in enforcing the State laAvs which are designed to pre- 

 serve the remnants of wild life left from the days of the frontier 

 hunter and the unfenced range. 



NORTHERN WYOMING 



BIGHORN NATIONAL FOREST 



South of the Crow Indian Reservation and across the Big Horn 

 Valley from the Shoshone National Forest lies the Bighorn National 

 Forest, an area of more than 1,125,000 acres extending 80 miles in 

 a southeasterly direction from the Montana-Wyoming line along the 

 Big Horn Mountains. This is a wild stretch of country where game 

 abounds in natural haunts that have been the home of their an- 

 cestors for uncounted ages. This region was a famous hunting 

 ground of the Sioux, Crow, and Cheyenne Indians before the com- 

 ing of the white man, and was the scene of many bloody battles in 

 early Indian campaigns. 



The Big Horn Peaks, which rise more than 13,000 feet above sea 

 level and mark the crest of the forest, were objects of veneration 

 in the religious life of the Indians. Back into those rugged, snow- 

 capped, enveloping solitudes the prehistoric American went to make 

 or find his "medicine". Relics of these rites remain to pique the 

 imagination of those wandering over these mountains to-clay. 



Just as the mountains are the backbone of the region geograph- 

 ically, the resources of the national forests have come to be the back- 

 bone of the region economically. Because of the close relation be- 

 tween forest ranges, timber, and water and surrounding ranches, this 

 forest is regarded locally with a great degree of proprietary interest. 

 Individuals and organizations cooperate freely and generously in 

 developing improvements which increase the usefulness of the forest 

 resources, and support a volunteer fire-fighting organization which 

 is of the greatest importance in keeping out forest fires. Such un- 

 derstanding is of more than casual value to the Forest Service in its 

 work. The development of the timber industry on a large scale will 

 come eventually and when it comes, in addition to providing for 

 the harvesting of a large annual growth of timber, will contribute in 

 still other ways to the economic prosperity of the surrounding towns. 



It is part of the policy of national forest administration to make 

 the various forest units community assets as well as national assets. 

 The grazing facilities of the forest have been handled in such a way 

 that they have become an essential factor in the livestock industry, 

 which for years has been of major importance in this locality. In 

 all, probably 400 ranch owners depend on the Bighorn National 

 Forest for summer range. The forest also furnishes a considerable 

 amount of wood for use on these same ranches, which, in addition, 

 derive their water supply from streams rising in the mountains 

 within the forest boundaries. 



FOREST RECREATION 



As is frequently the case, the value of this national forest as a 

 community asset is felt far beyond the limits of the near-by valleys. 



