Black Hills Parks & Forests Association
Black Hills National Forest was protected in 1897, eight years before the US Forest Service existed. The short version of how that happened: the hills were logged hard during the gold rush, the damage alarmed the country, and the federal government set the forest aside. What came next, the first regulated timber sale in the nation and a new way of thinking about managing forests for the long run, started right here.
This page follows the forest as a US Forest Service unit: the reserve created under President Grover Cleveland, the agency that took it over in 1905, the “wise use” doctrine of Gifford Pinchot, and “Case No. 1,” the first federally managed timber sale in the country. The gold rush and the boomtowns matter here for one reason. They are why the forest was cut, and then why it was saved.
You can still read that history on the ground. Old flumes, sealed mine shafts, Civilian Conservation Corps stonework, and a fire tower on Black Elk Peak sit along many of today’s trails and roads.
For thousands of years before any forest reserve existed, the Black Hills held deep cultural and spiritual significance for Plains tribes, particularly the Lakota, who know this land as Paha Sapa, “hills that are black.” The name describes how the pine-covered slopes look nearly black from out on the plains, and it became the name on the map. That history belongs to the Lakota and their own tellers, so we keep it brief here rather than speak for it.
In 1868, the Fort Laramie Treaty recognized the Black Hills as part of the Great Sioux Reservation. Within a decade that agreement was broken, and the events that followed are the reason a national forest exists here at all.
In 1874, an Army expedition led by George Armstrong Custer confirmed gold in the central hills. Despite the treaty, prospectors poured in, and boomtowns like Deadwood and Lead went up almost overnight. The Homestake Mine at Lead, established in 1877, grew into the deepest and most productive gold mine in the Western Hemisphere and ran until 2002.
All of that took timber. Mine supports, mill buildings, homes, and fuel came out of the surrounding pine, and logging crews cut the hills with little regulation. By the 1890s the cost was visible: bare hillsides, eroding slopes, and streams fouled with mining waste. Drought and logging slash fed severe wildfires in 1893. The country was beginning to see what unregulated cutting did to a forest, and the Black Hills became one of the clearest examples.
Congress passed the Forest Reserve Act in 1891, giving the president authority to set aside forest reserves on public land. On February 22, 1897, President Grover Cleveland used it to create the Black Hills Forest Reserve, protecting roughly 1.2 million acres. It was one of 13 reserves established that day, which put the Black Hills among the earliest federally protected forests in the nation.
At first the Department of the Interior managed the reserves, with an emphasis on protection more than use. That created friction with the towns and mines that depended on forest timber, and it set up the change that came a few years later.
In 1899, the government sold timber in the Black Hills to the Homestake Mining Company. Recorded as “Case No. 1,” it was the first federally managed timber sale in the country. The terms mattered as much as the sale itself: selective cutting instead of clear-cutting, and rules meant to let the forest grow back. It set the pattern for how the government would handle timber on public land.
In 1905, management of the reserves moved to the new US Forest Service under the Department of Agriculture. Its first chief, Gifford Pinchot, brought a doctrine of “wise use,” managing forests scientifically for lasting yield rather than either stripping them bare or locking them away.
“The greatest good for the greatest number in the long run.” Gifford Pinchot’s guiding principle for the US Forest Service
In 1907 the reserve was redesignated Black Hills National Forest, and it became a proving ground for scientific forestry. The multiple-use idea worked out here, managing one forest for timber, water, wildlife, and recreation at the same time, still guides national forest management across the country.
The Black Hills are recognized as part of the Great Sioux Reservation.
Custer’s expedition sets off a rush that will strip the hills for mine timber.
Drought and logging slash burn large portions of the hills.
President Cleveland protects about 1.2 million acres on February 22.
The nation’s first federally managed timber sale is recorded here.
Management moves to the USDA under first chief Gifford Pinchot.
The reserve is redesignated Black Hills National Forest.
Depression-era crews build roads, campgrounds, and the Black Elk Peak fire tower.
13,426 acres around Black Elk Peak are set aside as wilderness.
A major mountain pine beetle outbreak reshapes forest-health work.
Through the 1900s the forest kept serving as a working example of public-land management. Fire lookout towers went up on high points in the 1910s and 1920s, and tree nurseries grew seedlings to replant cut-over ground, some of the first reforestation work in the region.
The Great Depression left the biggest mark. Civilian Conservation Corps crews in the 1930s built roads, trails, campgrounds, and ranger buildings, many still in use. Their stonework set the rustic look people still associate with the forest, and the stone fire tower on Black Elk Peak, the highest point east of the Rocky Mountains, is the best-known piece of it.
Later decades added new tools and protections. The Wilderness Act of 1964 created a national system of protected wild country, and in 1980 the Black Elk Wilderness set aside 13,426 acres of the forest’s most rugged ground around Black Elk Peak, closed to roads and motors. Mountain pine beetle outbreaks in the 1990s and 2000s pushed forest-health work in new directions, and fire resilience now sits in the planning alongside timber, water, wildlife, and recreation.
The past here is easy to find on the ground. A number of historic ranger and guard stations survive, and some are rentable through the Forest Service cabin program. The Nemo Guard Station, built in 1930, is one you can stay in.
Mining left ruins, tailings, and the odd ghost town across the hills. Many shafts are sealed for safety, but interpretive signs at sites like the Spokane Mine explain how the work was done. Old railroad grades that once hauled ore and timber now carry hikers and cyclists.
A few places tell the forest’s own story directly. The Flume Trail follows an 1880s water flume that once fed the diggings. The George S. Mickelson Trail runs 109 miles on a converted rail grade through the heart of the hills. The stone fire tower on Black Elk Peak, built by the CCC and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, still stands at the summit. And a small interpretive site near Nemo marks where Case No. 1 took place.
The Flume Trail, the Mickelson Trail, and the climb to the Black Elk Peak fire tower all trace the forest’s history on the ground. The trails guide has the routes, trailheads, and mileage.
The full overview of Black Hills National Forest, from trails to seasons.
Black Elk Peak, Spearfish Canyon, and the mountain lakes.
Hiking, biking, and scenic drives, including the historic Flume and Mickelson trails.
Campgrounds, dispersed sites, and historic Forest Service cabins.
Seasonal adventures, from elk in the meadows to trout in the creeks.
How the multiple-use idea born here keeps the forest healthy today.
Black Hills Parks & Forests Association is the nonprofit cooperating association at Black Hills National Forest. Memberships, the visitor center bookstores, and the online park store fund the interpretation and education that keep this history alive on the ground.
You can also donate or volunteer.
