Maps and History of Kaibab National Forest

The Kaibab National Forest is located in northern Arizona on the Colorado Plateau. It is separated into three divisions: the Williams Division near the City of Williams, AZ, the Tusayan Division just south of Grand Canyon National Park, and the North Kaibab Division north of Grand Canyon National Park. In the late 1800s, the land was federally protected as the "Grand Cañon Forest Reserve." Over the next 30 years, a series of land changes would divide the reserve into the Kaibab National Forest and the Grand Canyon National Park.

The earliest records of human presence in Northern Arizona date back 15,000 years. The plateaus and canyons are home to tribes such as the Havasupai, Hualapai, Hopi, Navajo, and Zuni, who have deep historic roots in the region. It is a unique and dynamic natural landscape of plunging canyons, old volcanic cinder cones, ponderosa pine forests, grasslands, pinyon pine, and juniper scrub.

Historic maps of the national forest, collected in this story, show how the borders and management of the Kaibab have changed over the years. In the early years of the Grand Canyon Forest Reserve, the region was mapped and its resources recorded. In the following decades, maps evolved into tools for collecting timber and fighting wildfire. These maps were the backbone of the day-to-day work of forest rangers operating in the national forest.

The Kaibab Plateau is comprised of a series of tablelands, plateaus, and mesas that rest in an immense basin surrounded by highlands. Narrow stream valleys and drainage systems dissect the region, cutting deep through the rock and forming a myriad of steep-walled canyons. The rugged Colorado River carved through the plateau, creating the Grand Canyon over millions of years. Forests are found at the higher elevations of the tablelands, while the lower elevations are comprised of semi-arid desert basins.

The North Kaibab Plateau, located on the north side of the Grand Canyon, is a unique forested ecosystem. Herds of bison can still be found in its grasslands.

Mixed conifer forests, sub-alpine meadows, montane grasslands, ponds, and limestone outcrops occur at the higher elevations. Native tree species include ponderosa pine with some Douglas fir, white fir, cork bark fir, and quaking aspen. Wildflowers such as fleabane, silverweed cinquefoil, purple-white owl's clover, and dune wallflower are found on the plateaus.

Today, there are eleven federally recognized American Indian tribes in the Grand Canyon region: the Havasupai Tribe, Hopi Tribe, Hualapai Tribe, Kaibab Paiute, Las Vegas Paiute, Moapa Band of Paiute, Navajo Nation, San Juan Southern Paiute, Shivwits Paiute, Yavapai-Apache, and Zuni. The earliest records of settlement in the region date back 15,000 years.

A vast network of indigenous people spanned the Grand Canyon and Colorado Plateau region, uninterrupted until the arrival of Spanish explorers in the 1500s. The Spanish were the first to attempt to impose legal and religious control over the native people. For tribes like the Hualapai, whose peoples lived deeper in Grand Canyon country, initial contact did not come until the late 1700s.

By the 1850s, tribes in the Grand Canyon and Kaibab were struggling to maintain their lands and waters. Mormon settlers, cattlemen, miners, ranchers, and the railroad companies all sought to control the land. Ranching and settlements interfered with hunting and farming, forcing tribal members to relocate. The government aided in this displacement by dispersing lands to settlers and homesteaders.

The Shivwits Paiute began holding Ghost Dance ceremonies in the late 1880s, sharing the tradition with the Hualapai and their other neighbors. The ceremony spread through the tribes, part of a larger resistance to land loss, assimilation, and American westward expansion.

Opposition was no match for the endless flow of ranchers, miners, and settlers. By the 1900s, the government regulated most tribes to minor contested reservations, and their children were taken to be put into Christian-sponsored boarding schools. In the following decades, the era of protection of federal lands was further used to restrict tribes' access to land in the Grand Canyon and Kaibab.

Learn more about the people who call this region home in:  "The Voices of Grand Canyon" 

In the General Provision Act of 1891, Congress authorized the President to designate areas of forested public land as "reserves," to set aside for future use. The "Grand Cañon Forest Reserve" was established in 1893. In 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt transferred care of the reserves to the Department of Agriculture's new U.S. Forest Service. Gifford Pinchot led the new agency as its first Chief.

Boundaries were frequently changing in the early years of reserves and national forests due to surveying and land classifications. National forests in Arizona frequently changed to parks, monuments, reservations, and back to forests. In 1909, Arizona's national forests were enlarged by land seizures from American Indian reservations. Ten years later, in 1919, the act creating the Grand Canyon National Park was approved. The government transferred more than 650,000 acres from the Kaibab and Tusayan National Forests to create the park.

The National Forest System expanded rapidly in its early years through presidential proclamation. With newly established Forest Service headquarters in Albuquerque, a staff of rangers began to manage 18,847,414 acres of national forests. The agency's priorities centered around grazing, fire protection, timber management, and recreation. Of these many uses, grazing and timber dominated the time and attention of early foresters in Arizona. Cattlemen and sheepherders resented any restriction of their free use of public pasture and the fees and regulations imposed by the new agency.

With the passing of the New Deal and the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933, the Forest Service and National Park workforce increased dramatically. Work camps sprang up across the United States. Most CCC workers came to the southwestern region from out east. In the southwest the population was small, but the amount of federal land and work was large. Many professional foresters that would come to work on the Kaibab began their early careers working with the CCC. Young men from coal mining towns like Scranton, Pennsylvania, learned the skills and tools needed for conservation work. The CCC also provided the needed workforce to implement widespread prevention and control of forest fires. Fire losses decreased to new lows as new trails, fire towers, and firebreaks were built. This work helped establish the Forest Service's firefighting network that was used for the coming decades.

The establishment of the Forest Service also came with its primary objective - the protection, preservation, and harvest of the timber resources on the national forests. High on the list of projects for foresters was a systematic inventory of timber stock for the entire region. This directive came with urgency and priority from Washington headquarters. As early as 1908, it was stressed to forest supervisors that "the need to definite data as to the amount and character of timber on the forest of the southwest is imperative."

In 1881, lumberman Edward E. Ayer built a large-scale timber mill in Flagstaff and purchased logging rights in the Kaibab region. In 1887 he sold both mill and stumpage rights to the Arizona Lumber Company, which expanded the operation and built a logging railroad to harvest the timber south of Flagstaff in the Coconino region and north on the Kaibab Plateau. Other major lumber companies in the region included the Saginawand Manistee Lumber Co. from Michigan, the William M. Cady Lumber Co. from Louisiana, and the Southwest Forest Industries. These companies built and operated steam-powered sawmills and logging railroads that climbed to the pine stands of the high Colorado plateau. They shipped the finished timber products to markets in California or the plains states.

With the creation of the Forest Service in 1905, an era of fire suppression began. Forest rangers were tasked with managing newly established forests, and this management necessitated fire protection and wildfire control. The federal government started setting aside national forest reserves as early as 1891 to protect timber supplies - including protection from fire. Rangers took this responsibility seriously, and fire suppression efforts would continually evolve over the following century.

In 1911, the federal government and the states established a framework for coordinated firefighting. The Forest Service offered financial incentives to states to fight fires, and the agency came to dominate and direct the nation's fire policy.

The day-to-day life of a early forest ranger often consisted of surveying, grazing supervision, overseeing timber cutting contracts, fire protection, and forest inspections. A ranger's salary was $75 to $90 per month, which was used to buy a uniform, support themselves, and maintain a string of at least three horses. A ranger's daily outfit usually consisted of a sombrero, blue shirt, denim jacket, and pair of "Levi Strausses" work pants. Rangers also had to maintain a formal uniform, although this wasn't used while working in the forest. Arizona's forests, mountains, and plateaus in the early 20th century were a horseman's territory. The region was too vast for walking, and there were few roads and even fewer automobiles. Those early roads that did exist were too rough even for wagons. Rangers had to ride to work, and caring for their animals was a significant part of the job. A good ranger was a good horseman with a good saddle. From that saddle, they were on top and in charge.

Comprehensive surveying began in the Grand Canyon area as early as 1850, undertaken during expeditions into the region. As the government transferred land to federal management in the early 1900s, new survey and index maps were created to show updated borders. The Forest Service conducted inventories and reconnaissances in the new national forests. Typewritten reports and photographs accompanied survey maps that showed history, location, area, topography, settlements, and grazing allotments.

The Forest Service established field methods for conducting reconnaissance mapping. Sections of divided land, running either north to south or east to west, were assigned to a surveyor for two days of work. The surveyor made one sample and a visual estimate per quarter of a quarter-section. Reconnaissance included a map of essential topographic features and the number of thousand board feet for each species that could yield lumber. At the end of the workday, surveyors transferred maps to a reconnaissance section plat. When a plat was completed, it was sent to the District Forester.

The need for maps of the Grand Canyon region beyond Forest Service reconnaissance grew as the park and forests increased in popularity with tourists and visitors. In 1969, world-renowned explorer and photographer Bradford Washburn grew frustrated that no high-quality, large-scale map existed for the area, and committed to making one himself. Working with National Geographic, Washburn ordered aerial imagery, and he and his wife, Barbara Washburn, set up a survey network throughout the canyon. Many of the survey points were too challenging to reach on foot, so hired helicopters flew them to remote sites in the canyon.

It took eight years of planning, fieldwork, analysis, drafting, painting, and negotiating to create Washburn's "The Heart of the Grand Canyon" map. Washburn worked closely with the Swiss Federal Office of Topography and Tibor Tóth, a Swiss-trained cartographer who worked forNational Geographic. Tóth spent over a thousand hours hand drawing and painting the map. Included in the 1978 issue of National Geographic and reaching millions of readers worldwide, the map became the gold standard of the region's cartography.

Learn more about the life of Barbara and Bradford Washburn in  Barbara's own words .

With technologies like GPS and GIS, modern digital mapping has supplanted the traditional field surveying methods of the Forest Service. Digital services allow faster data collection and more efficient storage, and satellite imagery has changed how forests are monitored.

Digitizing 20th-century Forest Service maps allows comparing historical borders, fires, and timber stands to current imagery. These maps can have an extended life as historical documents and educational tools.

The Forest Service maps used in this StoryMap are georeferenced and available to the public  here .

Baker, R. D., Timeless Heritage: A History of the Forest Service in the Southwest (1988). Washington, D.C.; U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service. Available at  https://www.fs.usda.gov 

Krakoff, Sarah, Not Yet America's Best Idea: Law, Inequality, and Grand Canyon National Park (February 20, 2020). 91 University of Colorado Law Review 559 (2020), U of Colorado Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 20-3, Available at :  https://ssrn.com