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MISC. PUBLICATION" 18, U. S. DEPT. OF AGKICULTUKE 



ORGANIZATION 



The State of Colorado, with six others, falls within the Rocky 

 Mountain district of the Forest Service. In charge of this district, 

 comprising 27 national forests, is the district forester, with offices in 

 Denver, who is responsible directly to the Forester in Washington. 

 In every national forest is a supervisor with from three to eight 

 rangers under him, each ranger in charge of a district of from 50,000 

 to 200,000 acres. 



THE PIKE NATIONAL FOREST 



About the year 1807, when the West was only an indefinite wilder- 

 ness, Zebulon Pike, late of the Colonial Army, camped with his little 

 band of explorers at the foot of a very imposing mountain and 

 raised the first American flag ever flown in what is now the State of 



Fig. 7. — Plantation on Pike National Forest, made for protection of the Colorado 

 Springs, Manitou, and Cascade watersheds 



Colorado. Since that time Pikes Peak, to which the young lieuten- 

 ant's name was given later, has been a landmark for trapper, trader, 

 miner, settler, and tourist. 



When Pike first saw the mountain its slopes all the way to timber 

 line were green with an almost continuous coniferous forest. About 50 

 years later repeated fires burned the slopes with a devastating fury 

 and thoroughness which in places left little but barren rocks and 

 which rendered nature and time helpless to replace the original 

 growth. 



Pikes Peak is no longer in the midst of an indefinite wilderness; 

 in fact, the whole Pike National Forest, which extends northward 

 for 70 miles, is very close to the centers of population along the foot- 

 hills of the eastern slope of the divide. The early development of 

 the region drew heavily upon the resources of the forest. Railroads, 

 principally the Colorado & Southern, the Denver & Rio Grande, and 

 the Colorado Midland, obtained a large portion of the ties for their 



