San Gabriel Timberland Reserve

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The San Gabriel Timberland Reserve was one of the first movements of the United States Department of the Interior to take control of public lands in and about the San Gabriel Mountains of Southern California. It was officially established on December 20, 1892, and is the forerunner to the U.S. Forest Service's Angeles National Forest.

In the days of the development of the farmlands of the greater Los Angeles area, there was a struggle between the landowners of the basin and the herders of the forests. In order to develop larger areas of grazing land, herders would set the forests on fire. The ensuing rains would then create a vast flooding of soot which destryed the pasturelands and farms of the lowlying areas.

In the late 1880's, a Pasadena landowner by the name of Abbot Kinney sought to find a method of land management by which animal herding and grazing could be integrated with forest conservation. He then began to make appeals to the Federal government for the establishment of a forestry range which would come under protection from the government and hopefully cease the wanton burning of forests. For this purpose he requested the aid of John Muir, the veteran advocate for national conservation. As a result, the San Gabriel Timberland Reserve was set aside as the second parcel of National Forest, after Yosemite.

Unfortunately, there was no method of enforcement built in with the plan, and the forests continued to be burned well into the 1900's. Eventually forest rangers were set up to police the reserves.