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Note: This issue is no longer available for purchase. "Case No. 1 Turns 100"
We were able to compare our photographs with ones taken in the summer of 1874 by William Illingworth, a photographer traveling with the Custer Expeditionary Force. Most apparent is the fact that the Black Hills National Forest contains many more trees today than it did when Mr. Illingworth photographed it, in large measure because of fire control efforts begun in the 1920s. Equally remarkable is this fact: despite 100 years of continuous harvesting, a 1986 timber inventory revealed the Black Hills National Forest still contained 5.1 billion board feet of timber - as much timber as it contained before Case No. 1 was harvested. Many portions of the original Case No. 1 harvest have been thinned three times since the first harvest. This is history worth reading and remembering.
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The federal government sold its first timber sale in November 1899. We return to the scene, in the Black Hills of South Dakota, to see what it looks like today. Despite environmentalist claims that harvesting "destroys" forests, we found and photographed a beautiful, biologically diverse forest.