History
When the United States acquired the territory comprising Arizona and New Mexico by treaty with Mexico in 1848, those lands not already privately owned, including Spanish and Mexican land grants, nor reserved by treaty for the various Indian tribes, became a part of the “public domain” and open under various laws to settlement, purchase, and use.
In 1898, President William McKinley established the San Francisco Mountain Forest Reserve, at the request of Gifford Pinchot, head of the US Division of Forestry. Local reaction was hostile—citizens of Williams, Arizona held a mass protest, and the Williams News editorialized that the reserve "virtually destroys Coconino County."
In 1905, the Forest Reserves were transferred to the Department of Agriculture. Some 21 million acres (85,000 km2) of public lands, almost one-eighth of the area of Arizona and New Mexico, were now to be administered by the new Forest Service.
In 1908, the Coconino National Forest was established from parts of the Tonto, Black Mesa, Grand Canyon, and entire San Francisco Mountains National Forests.
Read more about this topic: Coconino National Forest
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.”
—Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929)
“Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of the prophets. He saw with an open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. Alone in all history he estimated the greatness of man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)