Closer to the Truth: 75 Years of Discovery in Forest and Range Research: 1925-2000

All scientific research discoveries, to paraphrase Sir Isaac Newton, are built on the shoulders of the people who came before. Individual researchers create small building blocks; a few blocks are unusual enough to attract attention in their own right, but most are destined simply to be part of a grander edifice somewhere down the road.

The forest sciences in particular yield few monumental discoveries; solo performances are rare. And yet the continuous delving by curious minds into our forest and range resources has brought forth a multitude of usable building blocks. When pieced together thoughtfully, they have quite literally changed the face of our forests. 

The PNW Research Station has played a prominent role in this incremental and ultimately pivotal construction. Seventyfive years ago, it was a collection of five people, a few boxes of files, some plots in the woods, and high hopes from the legal act that had created it. Today, all of these elements have multiplied by orders of magnitude. From surveying the forest tree by tree on horseback in the 1920s, to creating vegetation maps by using satellite imagery in the 1990s, the Station has brought its scientific capability to bear on every imaginable aspect of the vast forest and rangeland resources of the Pacific Northwest.