by Jeff Woleslagle
EMPORIUM – This summer, the Bureau of Forestry celebrates a true milestone – its 125-year anniversary, also known as a “quasquicentennial” and a long existence for any organization.
If we could turn back the clock to the bureau’s inception, we would see a denuded landscape plagued by rampant and uncontrolled wildfires. We would see streams severely impacted by sedimentation.
We would also observe visionaries like Joseph Rothrock and Mira Lloyd Dock and later, Gifford Pinchot, stepping forward with an eye to the future and what Penn’s Woods could be.
When the bureau was founded in 1895, the mission was to gather information on the state’s forests, implement a forest fire protection system and buy land for reforestation and watershed protection.
The state forest land system started with a purchase along Young Woman’s Creek, in what is now Sproul State Forest, in 1898.
Fast-forward to 2020, and there are now over 2.2 million acres of state forest lands, an area roughly the size of Yellowstone National Park.
Our mission is now to ensure the long-term health, viability, and productivity of the commonwealth’s forests and to conserve native wild plants. As the land base has grown, so has our charge to care for the commonwealth’s forests.