History Moments NE Nat'l Forest

In 1902, University of Nebraska botanist Charles Bessey, assisted by Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, convinced president Theodore Roosevelt to set aside two tracts of land in the treeless Nebraska Sandhills as Forest Reserves. Bessey’s experiment was intended to eventually provide wood products to satisfy the growing needs as the country expanded west. Gathered from New Mexico, the Black Hills of South Dakota, and the Rocky Mountains, seeds and saplings were cultivated to see which species could thrive in the dry, sandy soils. While the experiment never resulted in local timber production, the Charles E. Bessey Tree Nursery pioneered large-scale production of seedlings, and to this day distributes 2 – 3 million seedlings annually throughout the Great Plains and the West. The Nebraska National Forest remains the nation’s largest human-made forest, providing habitat for wildlife and recreation.