The BLM, USDI Bend Forest District: 1948-1954
by
Bill Jensen from notes
supplied by Ken Burkholder, Archie Craft, and Don Kobelin
The Bureau of
Land Management, U.S. Department of the Interior, was established in
1946. Shortly thereafter, Public Law 291, the Materials Act of 1947,
was enacted which provided for the sale of standing green timber
from vacant public domain lands. Prior to that Act, only dead,
downed or trees threatened with disease could be sold. Several
offices were established to carry out the mandates of the Act, among
them Bend, Oregon; Spokane, Washington, Missoula, Montana; Redding
and Ukiah, California; and Russellville, Arkansas.
The Bend
office, opened by District Forester Kenneth Burkholder in August of
1948, was responsible for timber management on the BLM-administered
public lands in Oregon east of the Cascade Mountains, and in South
or the Salmon River.
Archie Craft
reported for duty at the Bend office two or three weeks later. When
he was contacted by Travis Tyrrell from the Portland Regional Office
and offered the job in Bend, Terry didn't have an office location to
give him. He was told to go to Bend and look for the office, "It's a
small town". Driving around the town searching for a sign proved
fruitless. He finally located a Bureau of Reclamation Office and
they directed him to the basement of the Pilot Butte Inn where he
met Ken Burkholder for the first time.
After a short
get-acquainted conversation, Ken handed Archie some letters written
in his longhand and asked him to type them. Archie had made the
mistake on his application for Civil Service employment by saying he
could type- he took typing in school, but that was a few years in
the past, but he knew he could again with just a little warming up.
But Ken didn't a11ow for warm-ups and after a few minutes of
listening to Archie's struggles with the typewriter he came in,
picked up the letters and said he would do the typing. He gave
Archie something else to do and a desk without a typewriter. A
secretary, Evelyn Snapp, was subsequently hired to take the typing
workload off Ken's shoulders.
At that time
(fall of 1948), the BLM accepted applications from timber companies
for the purchase of timber from specific tracts of the public
domain. Ken was anxious to get started on some of these applications
before winter. Tom Conklin, who as the Regional check cruiser, and
his congressman Al Smith, came to Bend and guided them through a few
timber sale preparations. The first cruising and marking job was a
small area on Crooked River between Post and Paulina, Oregon and
second was the Lost Forest in central Oregon. Archie remembers the
first day on Crooked River - in order to finish and not have to return
the next day, they worked until the stars were shining and be began
to wonder what kind of outfit be had joined.
That winter
(1948-1949) was severe in much of the West with very heavy snow
falls. There wasn't much opportunity to do field work except in the
flat country of the Lapine, Oregon area which had about 40,000 acres
of mostly Lodgepole Pine, and a scattering of Ponderosa Pine. They
spent much of the winter on snowshoes running boundary lines and
locating section comers, which 811 served a purpose in later years.
In the spring
of 1949, Don Schofield transferred in from the Salem District and
Ray Lawyer, another Forester, transferred from the Coos Bay
District. Ray only worked in Bend a few months before resigning from
the BLM. Rod Long. a temporary Forestry Aid, was hired for the 1949
summer and Dick Schroeder, a Forester, transferred in from the
Eugene District. Peggy Carrier replaced Evelyn in the District Clerk
position.
Don Kobelin
came on as a Forestry Aid during the school break in the summer of
1950. Near the end of summer he told Ken he didn't think he'd go
back to college, he'd rather stay on and work, to which Ken replied.
I'll give you two choices. You can go back to college and get your
degree, or I'll fire you!" Don went back to college, finished, and
came on the District staff the following summer, 1951.
In the
following year four more Foresters were added to the staff John Lanz,
who had been working out of the Portland Regional Office,
transferred in and Ken Vanderwall, John Birch and Bill Bones were
new hires out of college. Lee Waterman was hired as another
secretary Bill Jensen was the last Forester to come on board in
February, 1953, and the District staff then totaled twelve.
Over the years
the Bend District was in operation, timber sales stretched from
public domain tracts near Gerber Reservoir and Lapine in the west to
Riggins, Idaho in the north to Pond's Lodge near West Yellowstone
and many places in between. In addition to the sales activity,
timber trespass work was also undertaken. Fieldwork in the outlying
areas, away from Bend, was completed in the summer and fall and the
winter was spent working in areas near Bend, mostly in the Lapine
area.
Most of the
timbered areas in the District were those that had been overlooked
when the boundaries of the National Forests were established and, as
such, were either isolated stands of timber or fringes of timber
abutting the national forests. The timber types were predominantly
Ponderosa Pine or a Douglas fir - Ponderosa Pine mixture. The Lapine
area supported a stand of nearly pure Lodgepole Pine.
For the most
part, timber was marked for cutting on an individual tree basis
using an Alemite oil gun that was converted to squirt paint. As a
considerable amount of paint was used in marking, and it was
expensive for the District's tight budget, Ken Burkholder found a
local source for free and durable paint from the State Highway
Department. They had a surplus of yellow paint used to mark the
centerline of the highways and a tot of it ended up on trees in BLM
timber sales. A lot of it also ended up on the Foresters.
In the
Lodgepole flats near Lapine the cruising was done on an area sample
basis-mostly a 20% cruise using plots as the sample. The sales were
diameter limit sales wherein all tree in the sale area over 11
inches in diameter could be cut and removed by the timber sale
purchaser.
In 1951 mother
nature created a near-epidemic increase in the porcupine population
of south-central Ponderosa Pine forests. In the winter, their
preferred (only?) source of food was the cambium layer in the tops
of the trees. This subsequently caused the tops to die or become
deformed. The Forest Service was using poison to thin down the
number of porkies. but John Lanz and Don Schofield applied a more
humane, and effective technique while cruising a timber sale on the
Abert Rim near Lakeview. During the two weeks they were on this
assignment, they shot 120 porcupines!
In 1953, the
Regional Administrator decreed that an office should be set up in
Boise, Idaho so as to have someone closer to the operations in that
State. Archie Craft and Don Kobelin were transferred there and set
up an office in the Land and Survey office in Boise, but still
reported to the District Forester in Bend.
Shortly
thereafter, in 1954, the Regional offices were closed and the State
offices were established. This was the beginning of the demise of
the Bend office. Craft and Kobelin were separated from the Bend
office. Kobelin was re-assigned as a Forester to the Boise Grazing
District and Craft to the State Director's staff in Boise. One of
the decisions made at that time was that Foresters would be assigned
to the grazing districts rather than being housed in a separate
forest district office.
In a short
time most of the Bend personnel were transferred. Ken Burkholder
went to the District Manager position in the Eugene District, and
the rest of the staff were transferred to other BLM offices.
Finally, only Dick Schroeder and Peggy CatTier Schroeder (they were
married before the office breakup) were left in Bend to wind up the
operation, which was finished in a year or less.
Of the ten
Foresters that were in the Bend office at the peak of staffing, nine
completed their careers with the BLM:
Ken Burkholder
retired as Chief; Branch of Protection in the Oregon State Office.
Archie Craft retired as State Director in Oregon.
Don Schofleld
retired as District Manager in Medford, Oregon.
Don Kobelin retired
as an Area Manager in Roseburg, Oregon.
Dick Schroeder
was a Forester in the Oregon State Office until he passed away.
John Lanz
retired from the Washington, DC staff after serving as the District
Manager in Ukiah, California.
John Birch
retired from the Washington, DC staff after serving as Chief,
Division of Resources in the California State Office.
Ken VanderwalI
retired as a Forester in the Eugene District Office.
Bill Jensen
retired as Chief, Division of Resources in the Salem District
Office.
Bill Bones was
transferred to the Medford District in 1954 and a few years later
transferred to the Redding District. After a few years there, he
resigned and went back to his beloved Vermont.
Ken Burkholder
steered a good course as the District Forester. He was a
professional Forester; had a good grasp of forest management in the
timber types of the area in the Bend District, was a fine teacher
and those who worked with him carried these teachings wherever they
went. It is fair to say that he was the father of the BLM forestry
practices in eastern Oregon and Southern Idaho.
The Bend
office served an important step in the development of a timber
management program for the public domain lands in eastern Oregon and
southern Idaho. The closure of that office was not without
opposition as some people in higher positions preferred to keep it
open. The efficiency of having Foresters working as a unit was
proven, but disregarded. In the years after closure of the Bend
office, forestry money was distributed to too many small pots in
each Grazing District and therefore lost some of it's effectiveness.
Some of the managers of the Grazing District were not interested in
timber management and let the program slide. Often Foresters were
hired out of college handed a program to run with little or no
guidance from experienced personnel. Many years were to pass before
the timber management program in the former Bend Forest District
achieved the stature it had during the short life of the Bend
office. And some think it still hasn't.
Paper written
by Bill Jensen from notes supplied by Ken Burkholder, Archie Craft,
and Don Kobelin and a little bit lifted from Recollections of A
Government Forester 1946-1976 by John Lanz.
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