2 Miscellaneous Circular 36, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture 



LOCATION 



The Wichita National Forest and Game Preserve is a tract of 61,- 

 500 acres, embracing the major portion of the Wichita Mountains 

 in southwestern Oklahoma, the entire area lying within Comanche 

 County. It is 117 miles southwest of Oklahoma City and 60 miles 

 north of Wichita Falls, Tex., on the Quanah Branch of the St. Louis- 

 San Francisco Railway. The Ozark Trail, a transcontinental auto- 

 mobile highway leading from St. Louis to Amarillo, Tex., where it 

 intersects the Santa Fe Trail, passes 4 miles south of the forest 

 boundary at Cache, Okla. The Meridian Highway, a north-and- 

 south through route, comes within 6 miles to the west. The city of 

 Lawton, Okla., is 16 miles southwest, and the Fort Sill Military 

 Reservation (50,000 acres) adjoins the national forest on the east. 

 From four directions — from Lawton, Cache, Hobart, and Snyder — 

 excellent motor roads lead into the forest, where they connect with a 

 30-mile system of national forest roads which are now nearing com- 

 pletion, making every section readily accessible. 



HISTORY 



Southwestern Oklahoma is rich in historical interest. Between 

 1850 and 1860 Generals Sheridan, McClellan, and Scott campaigned 

 in the Wichita Mountains and the surrounding prairies against the 

 Kiowa, Comanche, and Wichita Indians. Geronimo, famous Apache 

 chief, was held a prisoner at Fort Sill for some 25 years, until his 

 death in 1911. Quanah Parker, last chief of the Comanches, made 

 his home immediately south of the present boundary of the Wichita 

 National Forest for 40 years prior to his death on February 23, 1911. 



The land now embraced within the Wichita National Forest and 

 Game Preserve was a part of the old Indian Territory and more 

 particularly of the Apache, Comanche, and Kiowa Reservation. In 

 1901, when the reservation was thrown open to settlement, Congress 

 set aside this tract of 61,500 acres and it was held as a forest reserve 

 under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior. 



The administration of the forest reserves of the United States was 

 transferred from the Department of the Interior to the Forest Serv- 

 ice of the Department of Agriculture in 1905. By proclamation of 

 President Theodore Roosevelt, dated June 2, 1905, the Wichita was 

 further designated as a national game preserve, dedicated to the 

 preservation of wild animals and birds of national importance. 

 President Roosevelt's proclamation was based upon a special act of 

 Congress, approved January 24, 1905. By the act of March 4. 1907, 

 alf' forest reserves were redesignated as national forests and the 

 Wichita area became the Wichita National Forest and Game Pre- 

 serve. 



The first supervisor for this area was Charles Johnson (1901 to 

 1907), the second Frank Rush (1907 to 1923). Since 1923 S. M. 

 Shanklin has been supervisor. 



TREE GROWTH 



When compared with the bountiful hardwood forests of the Ap- 

 palachians, the pineries of the South, or the magnificent timber of 

 the Pacific Northwest, the somewhat scrubby and scattered white- 



