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.