By Janie O’Rourke

Section 1: Origin of the Jemez Forest Reserve and Early Telephone Line

Protection of the National Forests

Most nineteenth-century Americans believed that the United States was a country of inexhaustible forested lands and natural resources. During this period the United States federal government initiated many programs, such as the homestead and timber-culture acts, to encourage the use and development of its vast open spaces through the transfer of public domain into private ownership. However, by the mid-nineteenth century a growing number of people became alarmed by the rapid depletion of forested lands in the public domain caused by rampant fraud in federal land giveaway programs as well as by poor timber practices. George Perkins Marsh’s seminal book Man and Nature, published in 1864, gave birth to the early American Conservation Movement by articulating the need for better land use policies and forest conservation.

Due in part to the persuasion and pressure from the Conservation Movement members, Congress passed the Forest Reserve Act of 1891, also known as the Creative Act, which gave the President of the United States the authority to designate and create reserves from forested public lands. Under the Creative Act, designated forested lands were to remain under Federal ownership to be protected and managed in a sustainable way for the benefit of and use by future generations. It wasn’t until six years afterwards, however, when Congress passed the Organic Act of 1897, that funding was actually provided for the management and regulation of forest reserves. The Organic Act of 1897 gave the Secretary of the Interior the authority to hire forest rangers and supervisors who were charged with regulating the forest reserves’ occupancy and use.

In 1905 Congress consolidated federal forestry expertise by transferring the management of the forest reserves from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Agriculture, which housed the Bureau of Forestry. Gifford Pinchot, an outspoken leader in the Conservation Movement and founder of the Society of American Foresters, was appointed to head what became known as the U.S. Forest Service, under the Department of Agriculture. As head of the Forest Service, Pinchot supported the view that the purpose of the forest reserves was to preserve a perpetual supply of timber and resources for local use. His guiding philosophy was that the National Forests should provide for the "greatest good for the greatest number in the long run."

Use Book Committee, 1905

Fig. 1-1. Use Book Committee, Washington DC., 1905. Gifford Pinchot (front row second from right) sits with men appointed to revise the “Use Book” of 1905. (Photo: Santa Fe National Forest)

As Chief Forester, Pinchot felt confidant that the “technical and complex problems arising from the necessary use of forest and range could be successfully achieved with a management program based on “…scientific methods and a technically trained force.” Pinchot, shown in Fig. 1-1, initiated a series of booklets for his forest rangers, “The Use of the National Forest Reserves”, containing Forest Service regulations regarding grazing, sale of timber, and permitting. Potential rangers were required to pass civil service exams that tested technical skills as well as field experience. But while appropriate regulations and management would safeguard the forests against human depredations, Pinchot saw that “Probably the greatest single benefit derived by the community and the nation from forest reserves is insurance against the destruction of property, timber resources, and water supply by fire….The burden of adequate protection can not well be borne by the State or by its citizens…for it requires great outlay of money to support a trained and equipped force, as well as to provide a fund to meet emergencies. Only the Government can do it, and, since the law does not provide effective protection for the public domain, only in forest reserves can the Government give the help so urgently needed.” It was Pinchot’s campaign against fire in the forest reserves that inspired and guided the heroic efforts of the Forest Service over the next half-century. Key to the success of that campaign against fire was the development of the telephone system that provided a reliable and comprehensive communication network.

Establishment of the Jemez Forest Reserve

On October 12, 1905, the same year that Gifford Pinchot was appointed to head the Forest Service, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the creation of the Jemez Forest Reserve as “…an area to be reserved from entry or settlement and set apart as a Public Reservation, for the use and benefit of the people….” Los Alamos and much of the surrounding Pajarito Plateau were included in the southeastern quadrant of the Jemez Forest Reserve. The original boundaries of the Jemez Forest Reserve extended north to the Tierra Amarilla Grant, with an arm reaching up to the Colorado border, and dipped south of the Cañada de Cochiti Grant. The town of Cuba lay just outside the west boundary of the Reserve, and the Santa Clara and San Ildefonso Pueblo Grants edged the east boundary. The most southeastern section of the Reserve lay along the west bank of the Rio Grande. Existing land grants and patented homesteads within or intruding into the Reserve’s exterior boundaries, such as the Baca Location No. 1 and the Ramon Vigil Grant, were excluded from the Reserve.

The boundaries as well as the name of the Jemez Forest Reserve evolved over time. The narrow arm reaching to the Colorado border became part of the later Carson National Forest. As a result of the Forest Homestead Act of 1906, known for many years afterwards as the “July 11^th Act,” parcels of agricultural lands within the Jemez Forest were patented into private ownership. In 1907 the name Jemez Forest Reserve was replaced by Jemez National Forest - the word “reserve” was removed to allay fears that use of the Forests was to be overly restricted. In 1915 the Jemez National Forest and the Pecos National Forest, located east of the Rio Grande, were combined to become the Santa Fe National Forest. The area previously known as the Jemez National Forest became the West Half or Jemez Division of the Santa Fe National Forest. And finally, in 1916 the most southeastern section of the old Jemez Forest Reserve became Bandelier National Monument, although it remained under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service until 1932. In this report I refer to the general area of the old Jemez National Forest as the “Jemez Forest.”

Fig. 1-2. 1906 Archeological Map Jemez Plateau. Broad lines indicate the boundaries of the Jemez Forest Reserve.

The Building of the First Telephone Line in the Jemez Forest Reserve

Within one year after the creation of the Jemez Forest Reserve, work was begun on a communication system that would play an integral part in the Forest Service’s monumental effort to protect the new forest reserve from fire. The communication system was a single bare telephone wire hung on trees to connect ranger stations and lookouts across the Jemez Reserve. By the end of 1906 the telephone line would extend just across the lower southeast corner of Jemez Forest Reserve, running approximately 35 miles from the town of Española on the Rio Grande westward across the Pajarito Plateau and up into the Jemez Mountains, stopping just north of the small town of Pines.

Hanging the telephone line

Fig. 1-3. Hanging the Telephone Line, 1933. Men used climbing spurs to attach telephone insulators 20 feet up in tall, straight ponderosas. (Photo: Forest History Society at Duke University)

Ben and George White, brothers whose family homesteaded on Los Alamos mesa in 1896, were two of the men hired by the Forest Service to hang the telephone line. They were part of a small crew of men who scaled the ponderosas to hammer in the insulators that held the line (Fig. 1-3.) Ben White describes the route of the early telephone line in an interview conducted in 1965. The location and extent of the line as described by Ben White are illustrated in Fig. 1-8.

Excerpts from his narrative, highlighted in bold, are explained below each entry.

…the line came west from Española just south of Puye Cliff Dwellings to the Stone House Ranger Station.

Stone House was located in Sawyer Canyon approximately six miles north of Los Alamos Canyon and eight miles east of the Baca Location boundary. Although there is not a trace left of the old ranger station, Stone House was once a substantial rock structure, unique among the early and more typical log-constructed ranger cabins. Stone House probably predated the Jemez Forest Reserve.

From here [Stone House] south and west past Pine Springs, the location for a later ranger station.

In 1918 a second ranger station was established in the Santa Clara District at Pine Spring, located in Garcia Canyon about one mile south of Stone House. Used concurrently for several years, the Pine Spring Ranger Station eventually supplanted Stone House as the ranger’s district headquarters. Both Stone House and Pine Spring ranger stations were located along the old Pajarito Trail. The section of telephone line following this trail, from Sawyer Canyon south to the Los Alamos area, served as the main trunk line into the entire Jemez National Forest from 1906 to the 1940s, and many homesteaders of the area referred to this segment of the Pajarito Trail as the Telephone Trail (Hoard, p. 62). Three miles south of Stone House Ranger Station, the trail and telephone line crossed to the south side of Guaje Canyon. Continuing south along the Pajarito Trail, the telephone line dropped into Rendija Canyon and followed a wagon road west to pass through the narrow crack that gave Rendija Canyon its name.

Fig. 1-4. Camp Meeting at Pine Spring Ranger Station, 1924. Pine Spring RS, in use from 1918 into the 1940s, was the site of one of the annual meetings held for the rangers of the Jemez Forest. The Pines Spring ranger cabin can just be seen in the background. (Photo: US Forest Service)

Then south past Los Alamos along the western edge of the townsite to what was then the Loomis Ranch, approximately two miles south of Los Alamos.

From Rendija Canyon the telephone line circled west and south to cross Pueblo Canyon and then cross Los Alamos Canyon at a point near where today’s West Road climbs out on the south side. The line continued south along the base of the Jemez Mountains to pass the old Loomis Ranch, later Anchor Ranch, just north of the Ramon Vigil Grant Boundary. From there the line crossed into the northwest corner of the Ramon Vigil Grant and followed a wagon road southward, skirting along today’s West Jemez Road.

From here the line turned west to the top of Sawyer Mesa....

Just south of Water Canyon the line took a sharp turn westward to begin its steep climb up into the Jemez Mountains. It followed a precursor of today’s State Road 4 onto Sawyer Mesa, passing near today’s American Springs. The telephone line then left the wagon road to climb up onto and across the southeast flank of Cerro Grande. From here the line crossed the head of Frijoles Canyon along what was then known as the “Road to Buckman’s Sawmill” within the southeastern corner of the Baca Location No. 1. From the head of Frijoles Canyon the line generally headed west along the Baca Location’s south boundary. Just west of South Mountain the line turned north into the Baca Location’s southwest corner.

Jemez Telephone line map, 1908

Fig. 1-5. Telephone Line across Frijole[s] Canyon. This partial view of the 1908 map of the Baca Location shows the Forest Reserve Telephone Line following along Buckman’s Sawmill Road as it crosses Frijoles Canyon on its way to Pines. (1908 Baca Location Map)

…then up Redondo Canyon past La Cueva, turned north up the San Antonio Creek and west again above Seven Springs.

The telephone passed through the Baca Location’s bowl-shaped El Cajete to follow Redondo Creek and then passed out of the west boundary of the Baca Location. The line continued westward across the deep canyon drainage of San Antonio Creek. At Cebolla Canyon the line passed a ranger cabin at Seven Springs then continued westward to cross the broad drainage of the Rio de las Vacas. Continuing west, the 1907 line ended at a ranger cabin southwest of Blue Bird Mesa less than two miles from the western boundary of the Jemez Forest and ten miles east from the town of Cuba (Fig. 1-6).

Blue Bird Ranger Station

Fig. 1-6. Blue Bird Ranger Station Site. This structure, its use unknown, is part of the Blue Bird Ranger Station site. The site was also part of an old ranch with corrals and outbuildings.

A portion of the original line branched at the head of Cochiti Canyon south down Cochiti Canyon to Pines Ranger Station, later named Tent Rock.…

South of Rabbit Mountain a spur line branched from the main line south to drop into an upper tributary of Cochiti Canyon. The line followed the narrow-bottomed Pines Canyon southward ending at Pines Ranger Station just above the small town of Pines (Fig. 1-7).

Ranger Station in Upper Cochiti Canyon, 1907

Fig. 1-7. Early Ranger Station in Upper Cochiti Canyon, 1907. The American flag flies high over the predecessor to the later Pines Ranger Station in upper Cochiti Canyon. A pack horse is readied for a day’s work. (Photo: US Forest Service)

Telephone line map, 1907

Fig. 1-8. Jemez Forest Reserve Telephone Line circa 1907. This graphic illustrates the location and extent of the early telephone line as described by Ben White. The line reached across the southern third of the Jemez Forest between Stone House and Blue Bird ranger stations, a distance of approximately 70 miles. The extent of that first section of line completed in December of 1906 was about the first half of that distance, reaching from Stone House to Pines Ranger Station.

Ben’s brother, George White, in an unpublished document, described the difficult conditions endured in December of 1906 after completing the telephone line to Pines Ranger Station (White, Ben):

I had to move out of Pines because the snow got so bad – it was 5’ deep. It was December 1906. The heavy snow broke the lines down that we had built and I had to go over and repair the breaks. When the supervisor came out to inspect the telephone line he told us go on with the line to Sulphur Springs as they had the money there. So we told him to go back to Española to get a Bill of Groceries and wire and stuff we needed and send it out to us.

We sent Ben to meet the wagons. He got down in the Valle Grande and bogged his horse. So …we had to walk through 5’ of snow and lead the horses. It took all day to go 8 miles. We got to Rio de los Indios and no wagons – no food and no beds. So we went on over to the head of Santa Clara Canyon about 6 miles and on the divide. The snow was deep…Next morning we started down the canyon. It was 18 miles to the [Stone House] RS….We got to the ranger station at 4:30pm. Kate Leese and three children were there and they had only one small can of tomatoes and a piece of corn bread. I called Frankenburger at the Española Mercantile store. I told him to find James Leese and call me. Leese had been there 2 days and his family was up there in the snow without food. He was finally found and I told him to get a load of groceries and get up there –that we were all starved….It was 14 miles from Española. He got there at midnight.

Both James P. Leese and George White continued to work on and off for the Forest Service for the next several years. Leese was the ranger at Stone House in the Santa Clara District 1911-1912. Around that same time George lived in Guaje Canyon, hired by the Forest Service to keep the forest service telephone line in repair. George’s son Andrew recalls that his dad "rode a horse and led a pack horse loaded with wire and insulators to repair broken lines when the winter snows broke them down.”

James Leese & Mackwood Hopper

Fig. 1-9. James Leese and Mackwood Hopper astride Burro. Leese (left) later worked for HH Brook of Los Alamos Ranch. (Photo: Los Alamos Historical Society)

Keeping Los Alamos History Alive