Stanislaus National Forest
February 3, 2015
Angeles National Forest
Like the county in which the greater part of this forest is located, the Angeles National Forest takes its name from the early California-Spanish settlement near the San Gabriel mission. The original name of the mission was "Pueblo de Nuestra Sonora, Reina de los Angeles," or the Village of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels. This was Americanized to Los Angeles.
Initially the Angeles National Forest was known as the San Gabriel Forest Reserve when it was established by Presidential proclamation by Benjamin Harrison in 1892. The name was taken from a range of mountains at the western end of the Sierra Madre chain. In 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt ordered that California's first federal forest be combined with the San Bernardino Forest and renamed the Angeles National Forest. Seventeen years later, in 1925, President Calvin Coolidge reestablished the San Bernardino National Forest by separating it from the Angeles Forest.
Cleveland National Forest
Named for President Grover Cleveland, President Theodore Roosevelt signed the executive order creating this forest on July 3, 1908 (effective retroactively to July 1). In 1893 President Harrison had created the Trabuco Canyon Forest Reserve, which was named for a canyon within its boundaries. In 1897 President Cleveland had created the San Jacinto Forest Reserve, named after the most northerly mountains in the Pennisular Ranges that it encompasses, and extending all the way from the San Gorgonio Pass to the international boundary with Mexico. The Trabuco Canon and San Jacinto Reserves were combined to create the Cleveland.
Eldorado National Forest
This forest is named for the county in which most of it is located. Eldorado is another name for the "Land of Gold". El Dorado, or the "gilded man" was a mythical king so named because he daily covered himself with gold dust. He lived in a fabulously rich country in South America. Formed from parts of the Tahoe and the Stanislaus National Forests, President William Howard Taft proclaimed the Eldorado National Forest a separate unit in 1910.
Normally el dorado is two words, but the forest has spelled it as one word. The story is told that a clerk by accident placed a small "d" after El, rather than separating El from Dorado, like the county of a similar name. The Forest Supervisor apparently liked the differentiation and the name "Eldorado" stuck.
Inyo National Forest
From 1899 to 1901, the "East Side" of the Sierra Timber Reserve was administered as a separate unit of the Sierra Forest Reserve. On May 25, 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt created the Inyo National Forest by Proclamation when he withdrew 221,324 acres of land along the Owens River from settlement or entry. The name, Inyo, came from Chief George, a Paiute and leader in the Indian war, when newly settled whites asked the name of the mountain range. As nearly as can be ascertained, Inyo means "the dwelling place of a great spirit". The mountain range Chief George identified is today called the White-Inyo Mountain Range.
The original 1907 Inyo National Forest was a small area located almost in the center of the present forest. One year later, one million acres of the Sierra Forest east of the Sierra Nevada in Inyo county were added to the original forest. From 1904-1908 the newly incorporated area was known as the Sierra East.
In 1908, President Roosevelt established the Mono National Forest as a separate unit, named for Mono County and Mono Lake. Mono Lake was named by Lt. Tredwell Moore, who is the first recorded nonIndian into Mono Basin. He was pursuing Chief Tenaya of the Yosemite Miwok and Yokuts guide told him that the people on the east side were called Mono. The Mono Forest had been formed from parts of the original Inyo, Sierra, Stanislaus, and Tahoe Forest Reserves east if the Sierra Nevada summit. Most of the area was first administered as part of the Stanislaus Forest.
The forest today includes what was originally the Mono National Forest, parts of the Kern National Forest, and additional land in California and Nevada.
Klamath National Forest
This forest is named for the river which flows almost through its middle. Like many Indian names, the correct meaning and spelling of Klamath is obscure. The name has several different forms including Tlametl, Clamette, and Clamet. The Chinooks and the white man used it to describe the Indians who lived in a village in Humboldt County. Ethnologists believe that the name is a corruption of Maklaks which means people or community and, literally, the encamped. President Theodore Roosevelt created the Klamath Forest Reserve in 1905.
Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit
The Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit was created in 1973 as a special management area to coordinate and facilitate National Forest Management in the Lake Tahoe basin. Prior to this date the basin had been managed by three National Forests (Eldorado, Tahoe, and Toiyabe) administered from two different Regions (4 and 5). The boundary of the LTBMU is the natural watershed drainage basin. The LTBMU today remains as an emphasis area within the National Forests Systems Lands, but has not formally received designation as a National Forest.
Lassen National Forest
Named for Lassen Peak and Lassen County which were named for Peter Lassen, a pioneer settler, rancher and guide who first came to California in 1840. A contemporary and former employee of John Sutter, Lassen reputedly took a band of immigrants to California over the difficult Lassen Trail in 1848. In 1859 he was killed in Black Rock country, supposedly by Indians. He is buried a few miles from Susanville where there is a monument to his memory.
President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed Lassen Peak Forest Reserve in 1905. On July 1, 1908 he changed the name to Lassen National Forest and added to it parts of the Plumas, Diamond Mountain and Shasta Forests.
Los Padres National Forest
This is named to honor the work of the Franciscan monks who founded a chain of missions along the coast from 1769 to 1797. Eight of these missions are in or near the forest. The best known are in Santa Barbara and Carmel. The name was chosen to settle a long standing argument among the six counties in which the forest is located over what the forest should be named. The conflict derived from the fact that the forest over time spanned a tremendously large geographical area. Naturally each county wanted to have its name appended to the forest.
The Pine Mountain and Zaca Lake Forest Reserves were proclaimed by President William McKinley in 1898. One year later he established the Santa Inez Forest Reserve. In 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt combined these three reserves and formed the Santa Barbara Reserves. This name at that time best represented the area which the forest encompassed. Seven years later, in 1910, the San Luis Obispo and Monterey Reserves were added to the Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara was no longer an appropriate designation for the two million acres of land which had been combined into one forest. Chambers of commerce and county boards of supervisors lobbied for a new name. Finally in 1936 President Franklin D. Roosevelt changed the name to the Los Padres.
Mendocino National Forest
Mendocino takes its name from Mendocino County which was named for Cape Mendocino in Humboldt County. In 1542 explorer Roderiques de Cabrillo named the cape in honor of Don Antonio de Mendoza, first viceroy of New Spain. Originally the Mendocino Forest was called the Stony Creek Reserve which was named for a stream which originated within the forest. In 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt changed the name to the California National Forest. This designation proved to be confusing with relation to the state itself, and President Herbert Hoover renamed it the Mendocino National Forest on July 12, 1932.
Modoc National Forest
This forest is named for the county in which the greater part of the forest is situated. The county, in turn, is named after the Modoc Indian tribe, who fought at the lava beds from 1872-1873. The lava beds are a national monument located within the boundaries of the forest.
The Modoc National Forest is composed of two original units-the Warner Mountains Forest Reserve and the Modoc Forest Reserve. Both were created by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904. Four years later he consolidated them into the Modoc National Forest.
Plumas National Forest
El Rio de las Plumas-"the River of the Feathers"-was so named by Captain Luis Arguello, who let an expedition in 1820, because he was particularly intrigued by the large number of feathers of wildlife floating on the river. The river, the county in which it is located and the forest were all Americanized to Plumas.
The Plumas Forest Reserve was proclaimed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905. In 1908 he merged the Diamond Mountain Forest Reserve with the Plumas and called them the Plumas National Forest.
San Bernardino National Forest
This forest is named for the San Bernardino Mountains which are a range at the eastern end of the Sierra Madre chain. The name is Spanish in origin. The traditional founding and naming of San Bernardino is that on May 20, 1810—the feast day of Saint Bernardino of Siena—a party of missionaries, soldiers and Indians led by Padre Dumetz, the last surviving member of Junipero Sierra's band of Franciscans, entered a valley called "Gauchama" by the Indians. Dumetz named it in Sierra's honor. The missionaries built a chapel which evolved into a town which ultimately became the city of San Bernardino.
The original San Bernardino Forest Reserve was created by President Harrison in 1893. In 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt included it in the Angeles National Forest. President Coolidge restored it as a separate National Forest in 1925.
Sequoia National Forest
The Sequoia National Forest received its name for the 39 groves of giant sequoia, Sequoiadendron giganteum, located within its boundaries. In 1847, a German botanist named Stephen Endlicher named the coastal redwood trees Sequoia sempervirens. He presumably was honoring the Cherokee Chief Sequoya or Sikwayi who invented a phonetic alphabet of 86 symbols for the Cherokee language. In 1854 a French botanist, Joseph Decaisne, applied the name to the giant sequoias, which are closely related to the coastal redwoods.
Initially the Sequoia Forest was part of the Sierra Forest Reserve created in 1893. Because the Sierra Forest at this time was over six million acres, the Sequoia was administered as a separate unit known then as the Sierra South Reserve. In 1910 President Taft cut off the southern half of the Sierra and proclaimed it the Kern National Forest. Five years later President Woodrow Wilson abolished the Kern Forest, drastically reduced its lands and designated what remained the Sequoia National Forest.
Shasta-Trinity National Forest
The Shasta National Forest, which was created in 1905 by President Theodore Roosevelt, is named for Mount Shasta, a 14,161 foot peak in Siskiyou County. There are many theories about the origin of the word Shasta. The most popular is that it is Indian in derivation. The first written record of the word is found in the diary of Peter Skeene Ogden who was a fur trapper and trader for the Hudson Bay Company. In 1827 Ogden noted: "There is a mountain of equal height to Mt. Hood. I have named the mountain Sastice." The next observation is in the diary of John C. Fremont. In 1847 Fremont wrote: " The snowy peak of Shastl bore directly north, showing out high above the other mountains." The prominent historian Hubert Howe Bancroft contributed his own version. He held that Shasta was the name of a tribe of Indians who lived near Yreka in 1840. On Americans maps of 1848 the mountain appears as "Tshastl". Still others believe that Shasta is a corruption of the Russian work "tshastal" meaning white or pure but they are refuted by those who claim it is a corruption of the French word "chaste" meaning pure. Whatever the origin, no one knows when the word was first used.
The Trinity Forest Reserve was created by President Roosevelt in 1905 and renamed a National Forest in 1907. Its name comes from the river whose headwaters were almost entirely within the forest and from the county where the forest is located. The river was named by Spanish Captain Bruno Heceta who discovered it on Trinity Sunday, 1775.
The two forests were combined into one administrative unit in 1954.
Sierra National Forest
This was the second National Forest created in California and the largest at the time. It covered over six million acres of the Sierra Nevada and was about four times the average area of typical California National Forests. Originally it embraced parts of eight counties from Tuolumne on the north to Kern on the south and Mono and Inyo on the east. Initially its name was descriptive, but later when the Sierra was divided into different units this was no longer the case. Sierra Nevada means "snowy range of mountains" or, literally "snowy saw teeth". In 1777 Pedro Font drew a map which named the Sierra Nevadas for the first time.
President Harrison proclaimed the Sierra Forest Reserve on February 14, 1893. Four years later the south half became a separate unit and was named Sierra South during the "forest reserves" era. This designation was dropped after the administrative transition to the National Forests.
Six Rivers National Forest
President Truman's June 3, 1947 proclamation establishing the Six Rivers was delayed nine months because naming the forest was such a long and controversial process. A young national forest, the Six Rivers was composed of pieces from three existing national forests in two regions: the Siskiyou in Region 6, and the Klamath and Trinity in Region 5.
No fewer than 25 names for the new forest were seriously considered before-somewhat by default-"Six Rivers" was settled upon. Proposed as a temporary moniker until agreement could be reached on a permanent one, Six Rivers was . . . the most expedient. If the name of any individual or pair of individuals is initially adopted its subsequent abandonment almost certainly will provoke controversy and resistance. But nobody will go to war over the abandonment of Six Rivers.
"Cincos Rios" had been suggested by Peter Kyne, author of The Valley of the Giants, Cappy Ricks, and other novels set in the north coast. When a reviewer noted there were six, not five, major rivers on the new forest and that California's northcoast had not been strongly influenced by the Spanish, "Cincos Rios" was transformed into "Six Rivers".
Stanislaus National Forest
The Stanislaus Forest was named for the river whose headwaters rise within its boundaries. The naming of the Stanislaus River has an intriguing history. The Spanish explorer, Gabriel Moraga, was the first non-Native to name the river, calling it "Our Lady of Guadalupe" during his 1806 expedition in search of inland mission sites. Later, the Mexicans renamed the river in honor of Estanislao, an Indian leader.
In 1828, the Indian leader, Estanislao, and a small group of Santa Clara and San Jose mission Indians failed to return after visiting the lower Stanislaus River region. When the Mexican military pursued and attempted to return them to the missions, Estanislao and his group fought-off three successive forays. The last one, led by Mariano Vallejo, eventually overpowered the Indians but still failed to capture Estanislao. After seven years, Estanislao surrendered. The river's name was eventually anglicized to "Stanislaus" and became well-known through John C. Fremont's account of his 1844 expedition.
The Stanislaus is among the oldest of national forests . . . created as the Stanislaus Forest Reserve on February 22, 1897. The Stanislaus Reserve was much larger than today's forest; it contained all or portions of the present day Tahoe, El Dorado, Sierra, and Toiyabe national forests. Bounded by the Mokelumne River on the north, the Merced River and Yosemite National Park on the south, the Central Valley foothills on the west, and the crest of the Sierra Nevada on the east, the Stanislaus now totals 1,090,543 acres.
Tahoe National Forest
Named for the famous "Lake of the Sky." While most authorities agree that Tahoe is a Washoe Indian word, they do not reach a consensus on its meaning. Some contend that it is a derivation of the Washoe words "Da-ow-a-ga". Europeans could not decipher the sound of an asperated "d" which sounded to them more like a "t". So the shortened version became tahoe rather than da-ow. Some think that it means deep and blue, while others believe that it means big water, high water, or water in a high place. Even Mark Twain contributed his version of the meaning of Tahoe. In Roughing It, he associates Tahoe with grasshoppers and grasshopper soup. John C. Fremont called Lake Tahoe "Mountain Lake". As for who named the lake Tahoe, there is debate about this too. Some credit the Reverend Thomas Starr King with thinking of the name. Others contend that William Henry Knight, who mapped the western states in 1861, J.S. Hittell, editor of an Alta California newspaper, and Dr. DeDroot, another map maker, got together and designated the lake "Tahoe". Supposedly DeGroot later persuaded the Department of the Interior to accept the name.
The Tahoe National Forest was formed from the Lake Tahoe Forest Reserve created by President McKinley's proclamation on April 13, 1899 and from the Yuba Forest Reserve created by President Theodore Roosevelt on November 11, 1905. On September 17, 1906 Roosevelt consolidated the Lake Tahoe Forest Reserve and the Yuba Forest Reserve into the Tahoe Forest Reserve. In 1910 the southern part of the Tahoe National Forest became the Eldorado National Forest under President Taft's proclamation.
Source: USDA
