Shoshone National Forest ( ) is the first federally protected National Forest in the United States and covers nearly in the state of Wyoming. Originally a part of the Yellowstone Timberland Reserve, the forest is managed by the United States Forest Service and was created by an act of Congress and signed into law by U.S. President Benjamin Harrison in 1891. Shoshone National Forest is one of the first nationally protected land areas anywhere. Native Americans have lived in the region for at least 10,000 years, and when the region was first explored by European adventurers, forestlands were occupied by several different tribes. Never heavily settled or exploited, the forest has retained most of its wildness. Shoshone National Forest is a part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, a nearly unbroken expanse of federally protected lands encompassing an estimated .
The Absaroka and Beartooth Mountains are partly in the northern section of the forest. The Wind River Range is in the southern portion and contains Gannett Peak, the tallest mountain in Wyoming. Yellowstone National Park forms part of the boundary to the west; south of Yellowstone, the Continental Divide separates the forest from its neighbor Bridger-Teton National Forest to the west. The eastern boundary includes privately owned property, lands managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Wind River Indian Reservation, which belongs to the Shoshone and Arapahoe Indians. Custer National Forest along the Montana border is on the northern frontier. The Oregon Trail, the 19th century covered wagon route, passes just south of the forest, where broad and gentle South Pass allowed the migrants to bypass the rugged mountains to the north.
Shoshone National Forest is home to all of the original plant and animal species that were present when explorers first visited the region. The forest is notably inhabited by nearly all animal species found in North America, such as Grizzly bear, American black bear, gray wolf, bobcat, cougar, moose, and elk. Throughout the forest is more than of hiking trails and 32 campgrounds. Within the forest there are five wilderness areas, these areas protect more than half of the total area of managed land from development.
Human history
Shoshone National Forest is named after the Shoshone Indians, who, along with other Native American groups such as the Lakota, Crow and Northern Cheyenne, were the major tribes encountered by the first European explorers into the region. Archeological evidence suggests that the presence of people in the area extends back at least 10,000 years. The forest provided an abundance of game meat, wood products, and shelter during the winter months from the more exposed high plains to the east. Portions of the more mountainous regions were frequented by the Shoshone and Sioux for spiritual healing and vision quests. By the early 1840s, Washakie had become the leader of the easternmost branch of the Shoshone Indians. At the Fort Bridger Treaty Council of 1868 Washakie negotiated with the U.S. Government for to be preserved as tribal lands. Subsequent amendments to the treaty reduced the actual acreage to approximately and is known today as the Wind River Indian Reservation.
In 1957, Mummy Cave was rediscovered by a local resident on the north side of the North Fork Shoshone River, adjacent to U.S. Routes 14/16/20, east of Yellowstone National Park. Subsequent archeological excavations in the 1960s produced evidence that the cave had been occupied for over 9,000 years. The oldest deposits in the cave yielded prismatic stone blades and other artifacts created by paleoindians and the surrounding soils were radiocarbon dated to 7,300 BC. The evidence indicates the cave was occupied from at least 7,280 BC to 1580 AD. Besides projectile points, the cave also produced well preserved feathers, animal hides and other usually perishable materials. Additionally, the mummified remains of an individual buried inside a rock cairn were unearthed, which were dated to 800 AD. Considered one of the finest paleoindian archeological assemblages in the Rocky Mountain region, the site was placed on the National Register of Historic Places list in 1981.
In the early 19th century, the forest was visited by mountain men and explorers such as John Colter and Jim Bridger. Colter is the first white man known to have visited both the Yellowstone region and the forest, which he did between 1807 and 1808. Having been an original member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Colter requested permission from Meriwether Lewis to leave the expedition after it had finished crossing the Rocky Mountains during their return journey from the Pacific Ocean. Colter teamed up with two unaffiliated explorers the expedition had encountered, but soon thereafter decided to explore regions south of where his new partners wished to venture. Traveling first into the northeastern region of what is today Yellowstone National Park, Colter then explored the Absaroka Range, crossing over Togwotee Pass and entering the valley known today as Jackson Hole. Colter survived a grizzly bear attack and a pursuit by a band of Blackfeet Indians who had taken his horse. The explorer later provided William Clark, who had been his commander on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, with previously unknown information on the regions he had explored, which Clark published in 1814.
Travels by fur trappers and adventurers, such as Manuel Lisa and Jim Bridger from 1807 to 1840, completed the exploration of the region. With the decline of the fur trade in the late 1840s and much of the prized beaver long since made scarce by over-trapping, few explorers entered the forest over the next few decades. The first federally financed expedition which passed through portions of Shoshone National Forest was the Raynolds Expedition of 1860, led by topographical engineer Captain William F. Raynolds. The expedition included geologist and naturalist Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden and was guided by mountain man Jim Bridger. Though the Raynolds Expedition was focused on exploration of the Yellowstone region, several efforts to enter what later became Yellowstone National Park were impeded by heavy snows across the mountain passes such as Two Ocean Pass. The expedition finally crossed the northern Wind River Range at a pass they named Union Pass and entered Jackson Hole valley to the south of Yellowstone. Hayden led another expedition through the region in 1871. Hayden was primarily interested in documenting the Yellowstone country west of the forest, but his expedition also established that the forest was a prime resource that merited protection.
Prior to the establishment of the Wind River Indian Reservation, the U.S. Cavalry constructed Fort Brown on the reservation lands, which was subsequently renamed Fort Washakie. During the late 19th century, the fort was staffed by African-American members of the U.S. Cavalry, better known as the Buffalo Soldiers, including the second African-American graduated from the United States Military Academy, John Hanks Alexander. Chief Washakie is buried at the fort, which is located immediately east of the forest boundary. Rumor has it that Sacajawea, the Shoshone Indian who provided invaluable assistance to Meriwether Lewis and William Clark during the Lewis and Clark Expedition, is also buried here, but it is now considered that this is unlikely and that her actual burial place was Fort Lisa in North Dakota.
During the last decade of the 19th century, minerals such as gold were mined with limited success. The last mine was abandoned in 1907, but panning for gold is still allowed in many areas of the forest, and in most circumstances no permit is required. After the end of the mining era, numerous camps were established by the Civilian Conservation Corps to help combat unemployment during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The camps housed groups of unemployed men who were paid by the federal government to build roads, hiking trails, and campgrounds for future travelers to the Yellowstone region. Visitation to national forests like Shoshone increased dramatically after World War II with the advent of better roads and accessibility to the region.
In 1911, Edwin Branson established a geology field camp for the University of Missouri in the forest, near Sinks Canyon State Park. It is the longest continuously running geology field camp in the United States. The first few years of instruction at the field laboratory included tent camping around the Wind River Range before a formal campsite was established near the Middle Fork of the Popo Agie and in 1929, a educational property lease was arranged with the Forest Service. Students and instructors built cabins on the property that are still used today. In 1948, in honor of his retirement, the camp was renamed from Camp Lander to the Edwin B. Branson Field Laboratory.
National forest created The Forest Reserve Act of 1891 authorized the president to set aside public domain land for forests. Prior to this law, most transfer of public land had been into private ownership. In 1891, creating the nation's first forest reserve, President Benjamin Harrison set aside the Yellowstone Timberland Reserve.
In 1902, President Roosevelt first greatly expanded the reserve and then divided the reserve into four separate units, with Shoshone being the largest. Upon the creation of the U.S. Forest Service in 1905, the reserve was designated a National Forest, but the current wording and title were formulated forty years later in 1945. A remnant of the earliest years of the forest management is the Wapiti Ranger Station which is located west of Cody, Wyoming. The station was built in 1903 and is the oldest surviving ranger station in any national forest, and is now designated a National Historic Landmark.
Forest management
Shoshone National Forest is managed by the U.S. Forest Service, an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The forest is separated into five districts and from 2008 and 2012 had an average staff of 165 employees and an annual operating budget of $17,500,000. The headquarters and a visitor center are in Cody, Wyoming and a smaller information center is in Lander, Wyoming. There are local ranger district offices in Cody, Dubois and Lander.
Shoshone National Forest practices conservation of resources, which ensures a sustainable flow of some raw materials from the forest, such as lumber for construction purposes and wood pulp for paper products. The forest averages an annual harvest of 4.5 million board-feet of timber for the purposes of commercial log home construction and another 2.5 million board-feet of wood collection from dead and down trees that are used for firewood and poles. Additionally, low-scale mineral extraction and oil and gas exploration and recovery are also conducted, though in Shoshone National Forest this has become less common due to a consensus to protect the natural surroundings. Only of oil and gas leases were filed as of 2013. More common than logging and mining are the lease options that are offered to ranchers to allow them to graze cattle and sheep. The U.S. Forest Service provides guidelines and enforces environmental regulations to ensure that resources are not overexploited and that necessary commodities are available for future generations, though conservation groups have voiced concerns over the management practices of the leasing program and especially cattle overgrazing problems. Leases for sheep grazing have declined considerably since the 1940s while cattle grazing has remained relatively constant.
Natural resources
Flora