The first week of May marks the annual occurrence of North American Occupational Safety and Health Week. Sponsored by the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE), the Canadian Society of Safety Engineering (CSSE), and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), NAOSH Week is intended to raise awareness about occupational safety, health and the environment. In honor of NAOSH week, and in the spirit of workplace safety, Peeling Back the Bark brings you not one, but two new forgotten characters of forest history.

In early 1960, the Pacific Plywood Company of Dillard, Oregon, launched an innovative new safety program. Under the slogan “Caution Pays You,” the new program awarded employees for eliminating workplace accidents. Accident-free years would bring cash awards, based on money collected from monthly contributions into a Safety Dividend Account plan. To help launch this new safety program, a promotional character was introduced: Herman I. (Izzy) Cautious.

While his name was a basic play on a safety question (“her man, is he cautious?”), there was no doubt about Herman’s commitment to workplace health. Always safely decked out in hardhat and gloves, Herman appeared on posters and signs around the plant to raise awareness for the program. His image was accompanied by the “Caution Pays You” slogan, which was trademarked in 1960.

Pacific Plywood employees with Herman I. Cautious signs. Bob Young at far right.

The idea to use monetary rewards to reduce accidents came from Pacific Plywood Company’s Safety Director Bob Young. He and others at the company had big plans for the program.  An article in the May 1960 issue of The Lumberman stated, “Considerable interest has been shown in the plan by outside industries, and many inquiries have been made about its operation even before it has been started.” It’s unknown how much interest was shown in the Herman Cautious character, though. He was used on company safety awards for a short time, but then appeared to quickly vanish from the public eye.

Herman Cautious wasn’t the only hardhat-wearing forest-related safety character to fade from view in the early 1960s. The U.S. Forest Service has a forgotten safety character of its own: Paula Bunyan. Paula, drawn by legendary Forest Service artist Rudy Wendelin, was presented as the “Guardian of Safety” for the agency.

We’ll let the official backstory on Paula speak for itself: ”She is the daughter of Paul Bunyan, the legendary, swashbuckling, and sometimes unsafe north woods hero. Being a woman, Paula knew how to get her message across to her father and converted him to a safety conscious individual without impairing his tremendous production. This spread his fame all the more. We feel the modern day forester is susceptible to the wiles of such a safety symbol.”

The remaining evidence is scant, but Paula – and her “SURE” way to safety – appeared on USFS safety and accident statistics charts at least through the early 1960s. Paula, of course, is just one very small piece of Wendelin’s fantastic safety-related artwork. Selections from his significant body of workplace safety illustrations and posters have been previously featured on Peeling Back the Bark. For even more, keep an eye on the FHS Twitter feed, as we will feature Wendelin safety art classics throughout the week. Stay safe out there folks!

Below you will find posters of this year’s films in order of screening. We have a wonderful mix of comedy, drama, and horror films, including one that premiered this past weekend in theaters across the country. All films will be shown in the Gifford Pinchot Multimedia Theater at Peeling Back the Bark World Headquarters. What will be this year’s prize-winning film? Be sure to take our poll at the bottom of the post to decide who takes home the coveted Poisson d’Avril Award given to the most outstanding film of the festival!

Why Schenck and the Biltmore Forest School? Established in 1898 by Schenck, it was the first forestry school in North America. Its 300-plus graduates were part of the first generation of foresters in America, many of whom became leaders in the conservation movement. And the Biltmore’s forests are the site of the first large-scale forest management effort in the United States, as well as the first land purchased under the Weeks Act. But even though the school and Schenck’s contributions to American forestry were considered important enough that the school’s buildings and grounds were preserved as the Cradle of Forestry in America National Historic Site a half-century ago, no documentary film exists about him or the school. Schenck tends to be overshadowed by his contemporaries Gifford Pinchot, Teddy Roosevelt, and John Muir in forestry and conservation history—all subjects of documentary films.

Afraid that this will be a bone-dry, march-through-time history lesson? Fear not! At the heart of any good film is tension and drama, and the history of the Biltmore Forest School and its larger-than-life founder is a story spilling over with both. Think of it as forest history’s Downton Abbey. After all, it’s the height of the Victorian Era and Carl Schenck worked for one of the wealthiest men in the country at the largest private home ever built in the U.S. How’s that for a dramatic setting. Not dramatic enough? How about: He worked at a place built by robber baron money. No? Schenck was a hotheaded forester who didn’t shy away from a fight: He argued with Teddy Roosevelt over the future of America’s forests and he so angered Gifford Pinchot that Pinchot denounced him as an antichrist! Got your attention yet? When Schenck’s boss lied to him, Schenck punched him out and got fired! Soon thereafter, World War I broke out and Schenck found himself in the German army fighting against some of his former American students!

So, you ask, when can I see this epic forest history documentary? That’s where you come in. We could trade on our good looks and charm to get this made, but, frankly, that won’t get us past the opening credits. So to help kickstart our fundraising for the documentary film, we’re excited to announce another first: Yours truly, The Mad B-Logger, aka, historian Jamie Lewis, has volunteered to run the inaugural From the Cradle to the Grave 30K Trail Race on May 18, 2013, and then the next day run the Biltmore Estate 15K—a total of 45 kilometers. I’m calling this effort “The Dash for the ‘Stache” in honor of Carl Schenck’s famous mustache. You can follow my training efforts on Twitter.

Each of these races takes place on the land where Carl Schenck worked and made history. We’re suggesting a minimum donation of $45—that’s a dollar for every kilometer I run—with all proceeds going to the production of the film. Of course, any donation is welcome and appreciated. But why not get a little something for your money? To become a supporter of the film, visit our Donation page. As a thank-you for giving at certain levels, we’ve established a few incentives. We have a donor who has pledged to match every dollar donated at a 1:1 ratio, so the more you give, the sooner we can begin production of First in Forestry: Carl Schenck and the Biltmore Forest School. So please tell your friends and help spread the word.

During his final year working for Region 9, Wendelin drew a series of sketches depicting the forestry work of the CCC that were used in an instructional pamphlet given to enrollees. Woodsmanship for the Civilian Conservation Corps, published annually from 1937 to 1941, served as a guide to using various tools, basic first-aid, poisonous plants and insects, and an introduction to conservation and forestry. Some of the artwork was also used in other CCC materials, like recruitment flyers. The cover image captures the spirit of the CCC then and the perception of it today—the strapping young man made strong from the work and smiling with gratitude for the opportunity.

“The mountains and forests of this country may seem a wilderness to those of the Civilian Conservation Corps who come from the cities and farms,” read the pamphlet’s text. “Experience in the C.C.C. . . . will, however, call for what is known as ‘Woodsmanship’ – the ability to live and work safely, conduct yourself in accordance with your surroundings, and adapt yourself to your environment. No one can be taught woodsmanship out of a book, but here are a few traits of a good woodsman.”

View selections of Wendelin’s CCC art from Woodsmanship below, and consult the Rudolph Wendelin Papers in the FHS archives for further information.

Although Benny Beaver is back in the news, don’t be confused. The one making news is Oregon State University’s mascot, and that’s because he’s been redesigned. Again. The Benny Beaver beloved by forest history buffs was the mascot for the Redwood Region Conservation Council (RRCC).

The RRCC was a forest products industry group in the Redwood-Douglas fir region of California that sought to inform the public about the necessity of conserving the area’s natural resources, in particular commercial timber, and the importance of doing so for the benefit of all. The RRCC was involved in certifying forests for the American Tree Farm System and already employed Woody and the Keep Green program to get the word out about fire prevention when Benny was introduced.

What makes this character stand apart from all those is that his creators went to the trouble of formulating a backstory for him. Benny was introduced in the summer of 1965 (we don’t know when they stopped using him). In the introduction below, besides learning about Benny’s extended family and ancestors, they even implied that he was OSU’s Benny Beaver—hence the reference to being mauled by a wolverine (in 1965′s Rose Bowl, the University of Michigan handily defeated OSU.) And when Benny was introduced, Bernard Z. Agrons was RRCC’s president, so we think that’s where the name of Benny’s great uncle came from. Anyway, his creators did such an entertaining job on the backstory that I’m going to let the announcement of Benny’s “hiring” do the talking.

Benjamin “Benny” Beaver—faller, bucker, dam-builder and member of the world-famed lumbering family—has joined the Redwood Region Conservation Council as its supervisor of forest activities.

Benny applied to RRCC headquarters for work following a six-month period of convalescence.

Last January 1 while inspecting the culinary qualities of the wood structures which support Pasadena’s Rose Bowl, he was seriously mauled by a curmudgeonly wolverine. Seems the wolverine had left his home in Michigan for a trip to Disneyland and had stopped off in Pasadena for some mild exercise. A beaver with a football was all he could find to tussle with.

Healed, Benny headed back to his familiar forest where, he says, the most dangerous creatures are 21-year-old loggers on Saturday night and a funny old bear who wears a silly hat.

Benny’s first assignment will be to work with that bear—Smokey they call him—in an effort to keep the Redwood Region green. But being a charter member of the “hard-hat-on-head, we’re-not-dead” club, Benny indicated he would try to talk Smokey out of wearing his felt campaign hat.

“Widow-makers,” he warned, “can drive you into the deck like a wicket.”

Well known as an industrious woods worker, Benny has numerous qualifications for his job in forest conservation.

His great-great-great granddaddy pioneered the technique of selective logging, and early lumberjacks copied Benny’s great uncle Bernard Z. Beaver’s method of getting logs from the forest to the mill by river floating.

As a matter of fact, Benny’s cousins still excavate canals—some several hundred feet long—to float wood for life’s necessities into their communities. Their dams are engineered perfectly to keep the water in the canals at a proper depth….

The announcement concluded: “RRCC hopes the Redwood Region will welcome Benny Beaver. We expect him to fight wildfire, prevent litter-bugging and help us tell the public that conservation means the wise and multiple use of our natural resources.”

That last statement reveals the stumbling block to success that so many forest history characters trip over: they are given too many things to simultaneously to represent and it confuses the target audience. Is Benny about fire prevention? Stopping litter bugs? Wise and multiple use? Aren’t the first two really just part of the third? This problem of a muddled message is why the Forest Service later created Woodsy Owl—people were trying to use Smokey Bear to talk about litter and other issues and it diluted the power of Smokey’s message. Further complicating Benny’s path to stardom was the introduction of Cal Green and Sniff and Snuff in California the same year Benny was introduced. How’s a beaver in cut-off overalls supposed to compete against charismatic Cal and the sartorial splendor of Sniff and Snuff? As Benny might say, dam if I know.

Fighting forest fires in northern California kept Benny as busy as a, well, you know.

The RRCC made ads like these available to newspapers.

Redwood Region Conservation Council letterhead featuring Benny Beaver.

RRCC vice president Norman Traverso with student poster contest winners, 1966.

RRCC promotional bookmark featuring the “Woody” character.

We’ve asked Leila Pinchot, a Research Fellow at the Pinchot Institute for Conservation (PIC) and a descendant of Gifford Pinchot, to share her thoughts as the premiere date of a new film about Gifford Pinchot approaches. 

Starting in March, keep your eyes peeled for Seeking the Greatest Good: The Conservation Legacy of Gifford Pinchot on your local PBS affiliate (check your local listings here). Seeking the Greatest Good is a documentary produced by the public television station WVIA that links Gifford Pinchot’s conservation philosophy with the Pinchot Institute for Conservation’s (PIC) efforts to address contemporary environmental issues.

I was involved with the film early in its development, as a Pinchot family member, and later became involved with the project as a PIC staff member. As a new member of the PIC staff, the film introduced me to my colleagues’ efforts to preserve water quality in the Delaware River by investing in forest management in the river’s headwaters; their innovative project to link sustainable family forests and affordable healthcare; and community-building through sustainable forestry in Ecuador. In the hour it took me to watch the film, I was able to really grasp how PIC is building on Gifford Pinchot’s conservation philosophy of “the greatest good for the greatest number in the long run” to develop innovative on-the-ground conservation programs. And I learned a thing or two about my great–grandfather during the biography portion that opens the film.

I’m very happy to be able to share that experience with middle school and high school students by developing a Seeking the Greatest Good curriculum guide with WVIA. The guide shows teachers how to use the documentary as part of interactive lesson plans to teach their students about conservation, its history, and current applications. To purchase the DVD or to learn more about the curriculum guide visit: http://www.seekinggreatestgood.org/. To read more about Grey Towers, its residents, and the Pinchot Institute, please visit the FHS website. You can view the film trailer below.

That’s Miss Sally Johnson. And it’s the new swimsuit issue of Forest Echoes—well, “new” on the forest history temporal scale. It’s from 1947. And to be honest, it’s not really their swimsuit issue. So what’s going on here?

Forest Echoes was the monthly magazine published by the Crossett Lumber Company of Crossett, Arkansas, from 1939 until the company merged with the Georgia-Pacific Company in 1962. The company incorporated in 1899 and built the town of Crossett, which was incorporated four years later. The history of the company and the town are intertwined. Both are also closely linked to the Crossett Experimental Forest, which has a long relationship with the Yale Forestry School, often the source of some of the magazine’s humor (see cartoon below). We’ll have an article on the history of the experimental forest in the next issue of Forest History Today.

But back to Forest Echoes. What began as a mimeographed safety bulletin distributed by the company’s personnel division to some 1,500 workers in September 1939 quickly evolved into a slick little monthly magazine that contained personnel news, safety information, announcements of new technology and equipment, school events, and local events and programs like the Miss Crossett beauty contest, which Sally Johnson won in 1947.

From the July 1947 issue of Forest Echoes.

Sometimes they printed general education information on income taxes and social security, or on more mundane things like personal hygiene. This same issue included an article on the necessity of taking care of your feet and wearing good shoes because “a little advance foot care may save you many hours of pain and lost income.” Short works of fiction were also published. They had to be short: the magazine was 6″x9″ and on average just 16 pages per issue. The magazine also provided news about the African-American employees events in their community. Overall, Forest Echoes provides an excellent resource on the town’s history.

The magazine is interesting from a historical perspective as much for what it says as for what it doesn’t say. Forest Echoes reflected what was going on in the national culture at the time in some ways, such as the beauty contests and community picnics and baseball games, while being selective about the news from the outside world. It was strictly about life in Crossett and Crossett’s view of the world, or at least that of the editors. During World War II residents were kept apprised of what the local boys were doing to win the war, and after the war an occasional article would appear on Crossett men who were in the National Guard. But the fight to desegregate schools in Little Rock in the 1950s is never mentioned and the magazine ceased operating long before the town schools integrated in 1968. It would have been fascinating to see how and if the magazine reported on the talks between the white and black communities about integration and the subsequent end of segregation.

Another way the magazine sheds light on this era is through the humor published within. From the very first issue, lots of jokes were included. Initially they were scattered throughout the newsletter but eventually they were consolidated into a column called “Wind in the Pines.” The jokes are on par with what you’d have seen in Reader’s Digest then and even now—jokes about the work place, everyday life, and relations between the sexes. Often they depict a hobo or a working stiff putting one over on or giving comeuppance to the rich and powerful. Not long after the magazine started, a cartoon character named Abel Woodman appeared on the inside back cover. He typically gave a message about forest conservation or job safety but sometimes it was just straight humor. You can look forward to a “Forgotten Characters” post about Abel sometime soon. For now, here’s a taste.

The presence of Yale Forestry School students every summer in Crossett gave the artist of Abel Woodman plenty of fodder over the years.

At the outset I joked that the issue shown here was new. Well, it is new to us. It is through the generosity of David Anderson at the Crossett Public Library that we just received that issue. In fact, he sent us more than a hundred issues of Forest Echoes, which will go a long way towards filling out our collection of Forest Echoes in the library. Along with those, he sent copies of two histories of the town. So for researchers interested in Crossett Lumber and the town of Crossett who can’t get to Arkansas, come on down. As Sally Johnson might say, the water’s fine.

IHOP’s short stack wouldn’t begin to fill a lumberjack of yore, though; it might only whet their appetite. What do I mean? According to author Joni Sensel in Timber/West (Nov. 2000), “Camp records indicate that on average, a logger in the Northwest around the turn of the [20th] century might start the day before dawn with flapjacks, eggs, bacon, fired pork, hash, spuds, oatmeal, prunes, fruit, doughnuts, biscuits, or all of the above.” And “all of the above” better be above average or the cook would hear about it: “Loggers never put up long with this sort of thing,” Joseph R. Conlin tells us in his excellent article, “Old Boy, Did You Get Enough of Pie?“ ”If they did not walk off, they put the unsuccessful cook on notice that it was time for him to leave by nailing some of his hotcakes to his door.” So important was feeding the men quality food that the cook was often the highest-paid employee in a logging camp. He was ”Godamighty,” wrote Stewart Holbrook in Holy Old Mackinaw, his classic history of the American lumberman in the 19th century.

Loggers consumed on average about 9,000 calories a day—3 to 4 times what most of us require (by comparison, endurance athletes such as distance runners and cyclists might take in up to 8,000 calories per day). And the lumberjacks needed every calorie they could get. Given the 12-14 hour days, exhausting nature of the work, and brutal weather conditions in which they worked during the winter months, breakfast was, to coin a phrase, the most important meal of the day.

Each day a man typically consumed “a half a loaf of bread, a pound of potatoes, a pound of other vegetables and fruit, plus cold cuts, salads, baked beans, stew, or soup,” plus dessert, Sensel cataloged. Meals were consumed in 8 minutes, with speed aided by the “no talking” rule and the need to take in all a man could—slow eaters would later be hungry. Keeping a camp of a hundred men supplied required bringing in vast quantities of food. Syrup for pancakes, for example, was delivered in barrels. The fare varied by season and region, and by era. Before refrigeration, fresh meat was rarely seen in the summer or was cured or dried, like ham or bacon. A more permanent camp might raise pigs for fresh meat. In the 19th century, fruits and vegetables were largely in dried form; by the end of that century, they were shipped in tins and cans; and then by the Great Depression, the camps regularly received fresh fruits and vegetables.

Holbrook says that for 19th-century loggers in New England and then the Great Lakes, “The fare was pretty much salt pork, beans, bread and molasses, and tea, black tea strong enough to float an ax on.” Contrast that with Sensel’s and Conlin’s descriptions of food and how much more variety there was. By the time the “lumberman’s frontier” had moved to the Pacific Northwest, loggers were eating better than most Americans. This was due in part because the large, integrated logging companies there “had the resources necessary to maintain their own ranches and farms,” according to Conlin. Coffee had replaced tea as the preferred caffeine source of choice, sometimes served in a soup bowl. Notes Sensel, “One logger might account for almost a pound of ground coffee a week.” I doubt that they were ordering their coffee with a twist of lemon.

In honor of National Pancake Day, we’d like to share some pancake-themed photos from our archive. The Paul Bunyan images are from the Mead Sales Company Paul Bunyan Campaign Collection and the William B. Laughead Papers. And with that, we’re off to get our free pancakes!

Pancakes are part of an Idaho logging camp breakfast (FHS5106).

The legendary lumberjack Paul Searls puts away a logger’s-size stack of hotcakes (FHS5083).

A “Logger’s Breakfast” for the national 4-H Forestry winners at the 1960 National 4-H Club Congress (FHS1875).

A “Logger’s Breakfast” hosted by AFPI for Boy Scouts who won national conservation awards, 1962 (FHS567).

Paul Bunyan strapped slabs of bacon on his feet to grease the cookhouse griddle.

Postcard of Big Joe, Paul Bunyan’s pancake cook (Laughead Collection).

Since 1934, much of TECO’s work has focused on making timber a strong and appealing construction material that can do more than steel or other metals. Its first product was the ”split-ring connector,” which was “used in the assembly of heavy timber trusses in building construction,” according to their history page. The connector, the rights to which were purchased from a German manufacturer, allowed the assembly of massive timber trusses used in the construction of blimp hangars, ships, bridges, and buildings, and the occasional oddity such as ski jumps in football stadiums. TECO later moved into plywood research and production and claim to have manufactured the first particleboard in the U.S. Their research and products were critical in the defense industry during World War II era and the construction boom that followed the end of the war.

Blimp hangars like this one became possible because of TECO’s split-ring connector.

One lesser-known product of TECO’s is the forgotten forest history character, Stickee Staystuck. He was introduced in 1953 in a series of posters citing the “do’s and don’t's” in successful laminating that were distributed nationwide. But little is known about him, at least to us. It was only by accident that we learned of this character when Eben stumbled across an advertisement with Stickee in it. And despite all the materials we have about TECO (the National Forest Products Association records, the Wilson Martindale Compton papers, TECO Company files in the FHS Library, and TECO subject file in the FHS Photograph Collection), we have almost nothing about this awkwardly named guy. Perhaps that’s part of the reason why our crack research staff (again, mostly Eben) could only turn up that one advertisement with him in it: his name doesn’t roll off the tongue—it twists the tongue. More precisely, it sounds as if you have glue on your tongue. In fact, we’ve been referring to him around the office as “Stickee Sam” or other sobriquets because they’re much easier to say and involve less spittle. His name alone may be why he’s gone the way of Howdy, the Good Outdoor Manners Raccoon. If it’s not easy to say or remember, it won’t, ahem, stick.

Another reason he’s not known to us today is pure conjecture. He isn’t mentioned in the two documents about the founding of the company written just four years after Stickee’s debut available on the company’s history webpage, which, if it’s an indication of his lifespan, says a lot about him. Even for the more freewheeling days of the 1950s, long before the phrase “sexual harassment” was ever uttered in the workplace, you got to admit that Stuckee was a bit over the top, as seen in the cartoon below.

Stickee, we hardly knew ye.

We congratulate the Timber Engineering Company on 80 years of great work. And while this is the 60th anniversary of Stickee’s debut, it’s doubtful that TECO will be marking that anniversary.

Eleven months out of the year, the WO was all business—only the December issue of the Service Bulletin had cover art, and naturally its theme was tied to the holiday season. The artists who designed the December covers vary, as does the featured subject matter. Some are lighthearted, like the one from 1940 by Rudy Wendelin, whose holiday art we’ve featured before. Others reflect the accomplishments of the past year, such as the one from 1932, when the Copeland Report was issued. We’ve opted to share just a sampler of the covers. And instead of interpreting them for you, we’ll instead let these act as a holiday history exam. Do you know what happened and why it was deemed important enough to document in the artwork? We’ve given you the link to find the answer to “What was the Copeland Report?” Answer correctly to avoid getting a lump of coal in your stocking!

Service Bulletin – 1922 (William Greeley was chief for this one and the next one)

Service Bulletin – 1926

Service Bulletin – 1932 (Robert Stuart was chief)

Service Bulletin – 1933 (Ferdinand Silcox was chief for this one and the next two)

Service Bulletin – 1934

Service Bulletin – 1936

Service Bulletin – 1939 (Earle Clapp was acting chief for this one and the next one)

Service Bulletin – 1940 (this and the previous one drawn by Rudy Wendelin)

Filed under: From the Archives Tagged: artwork, Christmas, Civilian Conservation Corps, Rudolph Wendelin, Service Bulletin, U.S. Forest Service ]]> http://fhsarchives.wordpress.com/2012/12/14/forest-service-bulletin-christmas-art/feed/ 0 Jamie "Mad B-Logger" Lewis December 1922 Forest Service Bulletin December 1926 Forest Service Bulletin December 1932 Forest Service Bulletin December 1933 Forest Service Bulletin Forest Service Bulletin - December 1934 1936 Forest Service Bulletin - Christmas 1939 Service Bulletin - Christmas Service Bulletin – 1940 (Rudy Wendelin art) http://fhsarchives.wordpress.com/2012/12/14/forest-service-bulletin-christmas-art/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PeelingBackTheBark/~3/qIgBD2juluM/ http://fhsarchives.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/forgotten-characters-howdy-good-outdoor-manners-raccoon/#comments Mon, 03 Dec 2012 16:51:01 +0000 Eben Lehman http://fhsarchives.wordpress.com/?p=5269 ]]> Everyone knows Smokey Bear, Woodsy Owl, and maybe even Ranger Rick Raccoon, but there are many other forest and forestry-related fictional characters that long ago fell by the wayside. Peeling Back the Bark‘s series on “Forgotten Characters from Forest History” continues with Part 10, in which we examine Howdy the Good Outdoor Manners Raccoon.

In the spring of 1959 the Pennsylvania Forestry Association (PFA), along with nine other conservation agencies in the state, sponsored a contest to name a “Good Outdoor Manners Raccoon.” The unnamed character at the center of this contest was to be used by the PFA as the new spokesman for a statewide anti-litter campaign. With increasing costs related to cleanup, maintenance, and repair work on public recreation lands in Pennsylvania, an awareness campaign was desperately needed. The PFA hoped that a friendly raccoon character, wearing a hat and a lumberjack-style plaid flannel shirt, would be an effective centerpiece for their “Good Outdoor Manners” crusade. All they needed was a name. The PFA would have plenty of options to choose from as over 48,000 Pennsylvania school children responded to the contest. The winner, John Hoyes, a first grader at the Second Street School in Charleroi, was selected in May 1959. His winning name entry: “Howdy.”

Howdy the Good Outdoor Manners Raccoon was quickly put into action across the state. Lloyd E. Partain, president of  the PFA, stated that “soon you will be seeing ‘Howdy’ along country roads, in parks, and at the many other places where people gather for recreation.” In the fall of 1959, 100,000 school book covers featuring Howdy were distributed to Pennsylvania children asking them to write their own good outdoor manners pledge.

As a forest animal spokesman, the Howdy character was in many ways inspired by the success of Smokey Bear. In early press releases about the character, the PFA actually went as far as to say that Howdy “is expected to become as well known in conservation as Smokey Bear.” In 1964, at the Dauphin County Firemen’s Parade, Howdy got to meet the famous bear himself.

While his popularity never reached the level of Smokey, Howdy’s image did spread beyond Pennsylvania’s borders, eventually finding a dedicated fan on the other side of the country. Margaret Robarge of Seattle, Washington, took Howdy’s message and ran with it. After encountering trash and graffiti on a hike through Washington’s Cascade Range, Robarge was moved to found the Good Outdoor Manners Association. With the permission of PFA, she began using Howdy as the group’s symbol. Based in Seattle, the Good Outdoor Manners Association (GOMA) promoted anti-litter campaigns, sponsored clean-up efforts in parks, and published a monthly magazine, Howdy’s Happenings. Howdy reached new heights out on the West Coast, where he was used by GOMA throughout the 1960s. An active chapter in Los Angeles began showing a 30-minute film, “Recreation or Wreckreation,” featuring Howdy in a starring role.

A 1966 article in Time magazine mentions that GOMA had nearly 50,000 members nationwide. The same article also detailed the group’s annual “Booster” and “Buster” awards, given to the best and worst examples of outdoor manners. And when they say “worst” they weren’t kidding. The 1966 Buster award nominees included such reprehensible examples of humanity as an unknown rifleman who slaughtered over 100 sea lions on the Santa Barbara Island in California and then proceeded to blow up an unattended ranger station.

While GOMA eventually disbanded, Howdy continued to be used as a symbol for several more decades back in Pennsylvania. In the early 1980s you could still find Howdy on t-shirts and tote bags for sale from the Pennsylvania Forestry Association.

Like all of our forgotten characters, though, Howdy eventually faded into obscurity. It may have been due to the Forest Service’s nationwide promotion of a new anti-litter animal character. The need for Howdy was certainly lessened by this pesky new owl, who rendered the “Good Outdoor Manners” message somewhat redundant. Out West, Johnny Horizon also began to encroach on Howdy’s territory. Beyond this, the other factors leading to his demise are open to speculation. Was it his use by multiple organizations? His cumbersome name? His aversion to wearing pants? Whatever the reason, we here at Peeling Back the Bark would like to pay tribute to our forgotten friend, Howdy the Good Outdoor Manners Raccoon.

Born in Connecticut in 1793, Elisha Mitchell graduated from Yale College in 1813 and taught for a few years in the North before coming to the University of North Carolina in 1818 to teach mathematics and natural philosophy. In 1825 he added chemistry, geology, and mineralogy courses to his repertoire. That same year he also took over and completed the geological survey of North Carolina. In all, he taught for 39 years. In 1821, Mitchell was ordained as a minister and combined “preaching with his education and scientific interests for the rest of his life.” The University of Alabama awarded him an honorary doctor of divinity degree in 1838, which explains the “D.D.” on the memorial plaque.

The following description of how the mountain came to be named for him and why he’s buried atop it comes from the University of North Carolina’s “Documenting the South” website. You can also learn more in Timothy Silver’s book, Mount Mitchell and the Black Mountains: An Environmental History of the Highest Peaks in Eastern America (UNC Press 2003), another source consulted for this post.

“Mitchell is best known for his measurement of the Black Mountain in the Blue Ridge and his claim that one of its peaks was the highest point in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. He first noted in 1828, in the diary he kept while working on the geological survey, that he believed the Black Mountain to be the highest peak in the area. In 1835 and again in 1838 he measured the mountain, showing the highest peak to be higher than Mount Washington in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. In 1844 he returned with improved instruments and measured the highest peak at 6,708 feet, 250 feet higher than Mount Washington. By that time local people were referring to the peak as Mount Mitchell. However, Mitchell’s claim was challenged in 1855, when [Congressman] Thomas Clingman [a former student of Mitchell's], arguing that Mitchell had measured the wrong peak, insisted that the one [Clingman] had climbed and measured stood at 6,941 feet. As a result of the ensuing controversy, Mitchell returned to the Black Mountains in 1857 in a final attempt to prove Clingman wrong and justify his own previous measurements. On 27 June, leaving his son and guides, he started out alone, was caught in a thunderstorm, and apparently fell down a waterfall and drowned in the pool below.”

Despite Mitchell’s efforts to prove that he had found the tallest peak east of the Rockies—which is how he came to be in the mountains and meet his death—the mystery of who first climbed it and made that measurement have never been conclusively resolved. Clingman’s claim that in 1855 it was he, and not Mitchell, who had first measured the peak fell victim to the outpouring of sympathy for Mitchell following the beloved and respected professor’s death. The argument, which had been playing out in the popular press at the time of Mitchell’s death, then turned even nastier when some of Clingman’s political opponents called him a murderer even though he wasn’t there and Mitchell’s death was ruled an accident. With Clingman’s personal and political reputation damaged beyond hope, he dropped the matter. Mitchell’s defenders nevertheless continued gathering “evidence” and sworn statements that seemingly proved that he had discovered the mountain on his first trip in 1835 (subsequent trips in 1838 and 1844 had not resulted in accurate measurements either). The removal of Mitchell’s body from its original burial site in Asheville to the top of Mt. Mitchell on June 16, 1858, which was done at the insistence of his supporters, cemented the professor’s claim in the public’s mind. That he was later entombed there simply made the cementing of opinion literal. Today Mitchell is remembered as a “hero and martyr,” while Clingman is “a back-biting scoundrel.”

On September 28, 1928—seventy years after his remains had been reinterred on the mountain that bore his name—a permanent memorial plaque was dedicated to Elisha Mitchell at the peak of Mt. Mitchell. FHS has photos of both the temporary and permanent grave markers installed in the 1920s. The original wooden lookout tower, built in 1916 and visible in the second image below, was replaced in 1926 by a stone tower, part of which can be seen in pictures further down. That tower was replaced in 1959, and that one was replaced in 2009 with a handicap-accessible observation deck (at bottom). Today the grave and overlook are in Mt. Mitchell State Park. The photos are from our North Carolina Forest Service Photograph Collection.

This temporary tablet marking Elisha Mitchell’s gravesite was installed in 1922.

Josephus Daniels at Dr. Mitchell’s grave, with the temporary tablet, in 1922. Note the wooden lookout tower in background. In 1916, at the time Mt. Mitchell State Park was established, the state built a covered wooden platform about 15 feet high. That was replaced in 1926 with a stone tower designed in a medieval motif.

Harold M. Sebring, R.G. Wheaton, and W.C. McCormick at the temporary tablet, circa 1926.

Prior to the permanent memorial marker for Mitchell being installed, a stone lookout tower was constructed at the summit in 1926. Photo taken April 1927.

Here’s the grave of Dr. Elisha Mitchell before it received its permanent tablet. Two of the women identified are tourists: Miss Margaret Turner, of Oteen, North Carolina, and Miss Edna Ritenour, of Fairfax, Virginia. Photographed on June 13, 1927.

Elisha Mitchell’s tablet.

The original setting of Elisha Mitchell’s tablet.

Workers take a break while installing the permanent tablet at the grave of Elisha Mitchell, 1928.        No, that’s not Harry Connick Jr on the right.

Mitchell’s grave at the summit of Mt. Mitchell, 1928.

Elisha Mitchell’s refurbished grave with the same memorial plaque, at the new observation tower, built in 2009 (photo by twbuckner).

This advertising legend set the standard for all who have followed. There are few other such characters with Smokey’s longevity, and fewer still that combine his longevity with his level of international fame and recognition, and none who have benefited society more. As I saw last week at the North Carolina State Fair, children (of all ages) still get excited about seeing him and proudly and happily wear stickers with his message. He is not pushing a product we don’t need, like some other bears now on the Walk; he’s promoting an idea that saves lives. Created in 1944 to promote the message that forest fires are destructive and that humans need to be vigilant about preventing them, by 1964 he had become so famous that the U.S. Postal Service gave him his own zip code to help handle his volume of fan mail. His famous phrase “Only YOU can prevent forest fires!” became so widely recognized that he only had to say the first two words and people knew what he was talking about. In one poster, he simply prompted readers to “Think” and they knew what to think.

Advertising Week executive director Matt Scheckner unwittingly told us the fundamental flaw with this so-called Walk of Fame: “Going back to 2004 when we first started, what we have tried to do is mix classic and contemporary; and by design, we work to freshen it up every year.” I suspect Mr. Scheckner realizes his walk isn’t what it really should be. I wonder if Advertising Week is ashamed of the venture. I couldn’t find a website dedicated to the walk, and it doesn’t even have a listing in Wikipedia. Rather surprising for an organization dedicated to the art of promotion. Moreover, every other walk or hall of fame is for those who have earned a spot because of their contributions to the field over a long period of time. It should not be a popularity contest or what strikes the public’s fancy now. Even the Hollywood Walk of Fame has standards! For theirs, you have to have a minimum of five years’ experience in your field and, unlike Kim Kardashian, you need to actually do something worth commemorating in stone.

Now contrast what’s just happened on Madison Avenue with how they handle things a few hours’ north at Cooperstown. In 1936, when they voted in the first class for the Baseball Hall of Fame, voters elected the five guys who to this day remain the gold standard of baseball: Ruth, Wagner, Cobb, Johnson, and Mathewson. Journalists and knowledgeable fans still measure every player that’s followed against those guys and what they did on the field. They won’t vote in Mike Trout or Bryce Harper next year because they’ve caught our fancy. They measure those rookies against the greatest, like Ruth or DiMaggio, and tell them, “Okay, you had one outstanding year. If you want to be enshrined, do it again for 9 more.” (Players considered for enshrinement in the Baseball Hall of Fame have to be retired for 5 years and had to have played for 10 years.) The Advertising Walk of Fame should have standards, too, such as the character has to have a career that’s lasted for a minimum number of years (I suggest 5, half of the requirement for Cooperstown, but enough to prove a character’s contributions and durability while also eliminating flash-in-the-pans) and first appeared a minimum number of years before (I suggest 8) to prevent a character in its fifth year of usage from being elected (Cooperstown requires that a player be retired for 5 calendar years; here, the three additional years provide extra time to assess merit and durability). Smokey is more than eligible on these standards. And given his long association with baseball, and baseball’s with him, perhaps he should be considered by Cooperstown for his contribution to the game.

But back to the flaws in the election process. Some characters in the Advertising Walk of Fame, like the AOL Running Man, weren’t well remembered at the time of their election and don’t resonate at all today. Some are so new, like Mayhem from Allstate Insurance (which first appeared in 2010), that it makes a mockery of the very idea of a walk of fame. And why was a character like Progressive Insurance’s Flo, created in 2008, under consideration last year and then elected this year? Bob Garfield of Advertising Age summed it up nicely after they announced last year’s nominees: ”[H]ow do we all know Flo?” Garfield asked. “It’s because she’s on TV every three seconds, and we can’t get out the DVR fast enough to fast-forward past her.” With Smokey, less is more. You don’t have to hear his message every 5 minutes to know what it is. That’s how you know he’s the marketing gold standard.

Smokey changed more than just marketing world—he changed the real world. He shouldn’t have to stoop to campaigning for votes against insurance peddlers and sugar pushers. He should’ve been in the founding class of the Advertising Walk of Fame. In fact, Smokey, you’re in a class by yourself and don’t need to be there. I say, Smokey, just walk away from the Walk of Fame.

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With the trip coming just after Labor Day and the traditional end of summer, discussion turned to a forest history vacation bucket list—places to visit and things to do relating to forest history before going to that great forest in the sky. With this trip I was visiting two places I’d already checked off. The Eno home in Simsbury where Pinchot was born is now a B&B, so you can go inside, though when I did a few years ago the clerk was unaware of its connection to greatness. No matter. It’s quite lovely, as you can see.

The Eno house, birthplace of Gifford Pinchot, belonged to his mother’s family. It’s now the Simsbury 1820 House, and you can stay there. (Courtesy of the author)

The Eno house, now known as the Simsbury 1820 House. (Courtesy of the author)

The other box already checked was Yale, home to the oldest continuously operating forestry school in North America. The school was founded by the Pinchot family, and the original school building (Marsh Hall) still stands, as do the other subsequent homes to the school, including Sage Hall. Other Pinchot-related places on the list include Grey Towers NHS in Milford, PA, Pinchot’s estate and home to the Yale Forest School’s first summer camp site, now operated by the U.S. Forest Service, and of course the Cradle of Forestry in America historical site and Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC, where Pinchot started his forestry career. (Be sure to read the book by the same name before going!)

But the bucket list is about more than GP or the Forest Service, though many places on that list are certainly tied to Forest Service history. As we tossed around places to visit, the homes of other great conservationists and related sites quickly came up: Aldo Leopold’s Shack in Baraboo, WI, and his boyhood home in Burlington, Iowa; John Muir’s home in Martinez, California, and his boyhood home in Wisconsin (as well as Hetch Hetchy Dam in Yosemite National Park and Muir Woods); and Sagamore Hill, Theodore Roosevelt’s home on Long Island (along with his North Dakota ranch and his Manhattan birthplace.) Some bucket list sites we’ve already blogged about—like the Pulaski Tunnel and Mann Gulch—others, like the site of the New York State College of Forestry’s experimental forest near Tupper Lake, NY, we haven’t yet. And of course I work at one of these—Peeling Back the Bark Worldwide Headquarters in Durham, NC. These are all places I’ve been. But I’ve not yet been to the World Forestry Center in Portland, OR, and its outstanding Discovery Museum; or Smokey Bear Historical Park in New Mexico, where they found the bear cub that became the living embodiment of Smokey Bear in the 1950s; or the Sawmill Museum in Clinton, Iowa, for the museum and Lumberjack Festival. I think them worthy of a place on the list. I’ve been to a TimberSports competition, which is also on the list for things to do, but haven’t been to a forest festival or visited any of these Paul Bunyan statues to celebrate the contributions of the forest and wood products industries to forest history.

Paul Bunyan statue, Bemidji, Minnesota. Fear the ‘stache.

We have lots of other places and events on the list. But I want to hear from you. What sites might be found on your forest history vacation bucket list? Please share them in the Reply section and tell us why we should go there—why is it so significant that those interested in forest history would want to see it before taking that great spiritual log drive to the great beyond? Perhaps if it’s intriguing enough, like driving on Cleveland’s woodblock-paved road, your idea may become a “History on the Road” column!

The call came in on the morning of August 5, 1949, from a fire lookout 30 miles away. A lightning storm the day before had rolled through and started a fire. The lookout reported smoke coming from the Gates of the Mountains wilderness area. At 12:30, a spotter plane flew over Mann Gulch and confirmed the fire. With most of the local firefighters tied up with two other fires, smokejumpers from Missoula were dispatched. By 3:10, 16 men (15 smokejumpers and 1 fire watch guard who had hiked in to help) were on the ground gathering up equipment and preparing to fight the fire in what they expected to be a routine job. Less than 3 hours later, 11 men were dead and two were dying from severe burns. In many ways, the suffering was just beginning.

Had it been a routine job, I wouldn’t be writing about the Mann Gulch fire today: those 13 men killed wouldn’t have passed into Forest Service and smokejumper lore; few if any would have heard of writer Norman Maclean, whose meditation on the deaths of the young men trapped by the fire still moves people from around the world to visit Mann Gulch and see where “the four horsemen” and the others fell that day. The friends and families of the dead would not still be mourning.

More than 60 years after the fire, LG Walker, a retired doctor from Charlotte, North Carolina, was on the boat tour of the Gates of the Mountains. Where the tour boat docks in Meriwether Canyon now stands two memorials to the men of Mann Gulch. Here Walker learned that Silas Raymond Thompson Jr.—a Charlotte native—was among those killed. He had never met Thompson. After sharing this bit of news with his friend Dan Morrill back home, the two started investigating how a young man from Charlotte had met his death in Montana. They were intrigued by how all these years later, Raymond’s friends and family (nobody who knew him called him “Silas”) were still haunted by his death. His death devastated his parents and still affects his sister’s life. Walker and Morrill soon realized that a tragedy fire has many dimensions, and set about making a documentary film in order to better understand the impact and legacy of the life of Silas Raymond Thompson. While other documentary films on Mann Gulch focus on the event and its impact on the Forest Service, “Death at Mann Gulch” attempts to capture how it affected one man’s community.

Raymond Thompson markers in Mann Gulch, taken in 2010 (courtesy of the author)

Of course, Charlotte was not the only community affected by what happened in Mann Gulch. In a small town in central Pennsylvania, the family of smokejumper Leonard Piper has also done its part to preserve that young man’s memory. His personal papers were recently donated to the local historical society (photocopies of them are now here at FHS). Though Leonard was buried in nearby Stahlstown, descendents of the Piper family gather every year in Pine Ridge Park outside of Blairsville, Pennsylvania, where he grew up, “for a family reunion and to remember a fallen hero, Leonard Piper.” The impact of his death is such that his story and a mention of the family reunion has a 3-page spread in “The Insider’s Guide to Indiana County Parks & Trails,” where that quote comes from. Mind you, there’s no memorial marker in the park. But Leonard Piper’s death still resonates enough in this town to warrant such a gesture. And these are the two families I know about.

Leonard Piper’s marker. This photo also appears in the Indiana County parks and trails guide.

What is it about Mann Gulch that continues to hold or capture the attention of so many? Our “This Day in History” blog post on what happened in Mann Gulch is our most viewed post; my initial post from three years ago sharing my impressions after visiting Mann Gulch ranks third and is one of our most commented upon posts. Certainly Maclean’s Young Men and Fire is a major contributor to the continued interest. Tragedy has its own attractiveness; witness the continuing fascination with sinking of the Titanic 100 years later. Yet few tragedies hold our attention like that of Mann Gulch. It is understandable why it might for the families of those who died. But I suspect that after those who knew the men killed are gone, the Mann Gulch Fire will continue to cast a spell. For me, the pull is personal: I’ve visited the site twice; I participated in the making of the film “Death at Mann Gulch” and contributed the photo of Piper’s marker above to the county’s guide; and I interviewed William “Bud” Moore, who was with crew chief Wag Dodge when he died and was consulted by Maclean when he was writing his beautiful elegiacal work. I could speculate about why it holds the attention of others, but I want to hear your thoughts on this. Why are you interested in Mann Gulch? Do you know of other families that continue to honor their loved ones like Leonard Piper’s does? If so, how do they do it?