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MEN WHO MATCHED THE

MOUNTAINS

MEN WHO MATCHED THE MOUNTAINS

The Forest Service in the Southwest

By Edwin A. Tucker

and

George Fitzpatrick

1972

United States Department of Agriculture

Forest Service

Southwestern Region

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402

50 144 .A165 789

Depos· USA

5-11-73

PREFACE

It would be presumptuous to call this a history of the Forest Service in the Southwest, for no single volume can tell the whole story. Better to call it a chronicle "of and by a few of the men who quite literally blazed the trail, and of the fulfillment, frustration, and fun they found along the way," as Edwin A. Tucker phrased it.

Several years ago Fred H. Kennedy, then Regional Forester, authorized Tucker to undertake twin historical projects: a history of Region 3 and the establishment of the Forest Service Museum at the Continental Divide Training Center. Both assignments were accomplished.

For nearly a year, Tucker tape recorded interviews with earlyday Rangers and other officials, some retired, some still in harness. And from newspapers and official sources he gleaned news items, letters and reports concerning early activities and people. When the material was typed, it covered more than 1500 typewritten pages-four big volumes-far too bulky a manuscript for publication as a trade book.

This book then is a distillation of that material, plus such other material and chapters that were needed to clarify and bring up to date the story of some of the people of the Forest Service in the Southwest.

Tucker has spent his adult life in the Forest Service, beginning during the period when many pioneer conditions still prevailed in the Southwest, and he knew and worked with many of the old timers and of course with the new breed of professionals who now guide the destiny of the Service.

"However spectacular the changes in the Service," Tucker wrote in a foreword to his interviews, "they were nevertheless possible only because of the kind of men involved, men who responded to the challenge of their particular environment and time. In the earliest days, for example, the men for the times were necessarily tough; they had to be to survive. At that stage, ruggedness and resourcefulness, not technology, were the requisites. Despite public apathy and users' antagonism to regulations (sometimes violent), in the face of political pressures, in the absence of guidelines and for the most part with little formal education, the earliest

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