Cleveland National Forest

About Cleveland National Forest

In Julian, gold was discovered, which attracted hordes of miners from the motherland, and the city swelled to a population larger than San Diego. Zinc, lead and silver mines flourished, but the influx of miners left its mark on the country.

Indian populations were dying out due to deprivation and disease, and early farms that had been overgrazed and lost their ability to mine themselves were lost to mines and the Indian population. Trees were cut down to build pits for heat and fuel, and large areas burned to allow miners to penetrate new areas to search for minerals.

The main result was a steadily growing threat to watersheds that became critical to Southern California communities. Early reports from the 1870s and 1880s speak of fires that burned unchecked for weeks and of fires of up to 100,000 hectares in some areas.

The need for forest reserves was clear when Governor Stone established the first California Forestry Commission in 1886. The Commission's findings highlighted the need to prevent large fires and subsequent erosion that would likely damage the Central Valley, San Joaquin Valley and Sierra Nevada watersheds. By the end of the 19th century, the lack of fire protection in central and southern counties in California had led to the loss of more than 1,000 acres of forest.

Nevertheless, the Forest Reserve Act was passed in 1891, and there was broad support for better resource management. There was strong opposition from timber and livestock farmers, who saw this movement as a reason for greater restrictions on their activities.

Although the law was intended to slow wasteful and illegal logging, the problem in Southern California was different. Californians immediately began demanding forest reserves to protect their watersheds, and Cleveland National Forest was the first to introduce the new system. It was founded in February 1893 by President Harrison and was based on the same principles as San Bernardino National Park, but in a much larger area. In February 1897, President Cleveland established a 700,000-hectare area, including desert land southeast of Palomar Mountain.

After Trabuco Canyon residents sent a petition to the General Office of Land Management, the reserve was doubled. But the GLO lacked the resources needed to train forest managers to take the lead aggressively. Early forest reserves were managed by the California Department of Natural Resources, not the U.S. Forest Service.

As a result, the reserve was transferred to the California Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Forest Service in 1905. The designation of the forest as a reserve changed to a national forest in 1907 and in 1908 to Cleveland National Forest.

President Roosevelt combined the two reserves to create a new 1,904,826-acre Cleveland National Forest. President Roosevelt made major changes to the forest, including the creation of the Cleveland River National Wildlife Refuge and the creation of a national park. In the following seventeen years, Cleveland had several cancellations, but none as significant as the one of 1908.

This was again significant in 1915, when the San Jacinto unit of the Cleveland National Forest in San Bernardino County was reopened to the public. The Cleveland River National Wildlife Refuge reopened in 1925 when it became the San Bernardino National Forest. Today, Cleveland National Forest consists of approximately 424,000 hectares of forest and is easily accessible via many paths.