Southern Forest Research Centennial
Over the past century, the structure and organization of Forest Service Research and Development (R&D) in the South has evolved.
In 1921, the Forest Service established two southern stations. They were modest operations. The Southern Forest Experiment Station, headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, had five employees. The Appalachian Forest Experiment Station in Asheville, North Carolina, had few supplies: one compass, four books, and a few typewriters.
Plant Chemist Elaine Howard working at an electron microscope at the Alexandria Forestry Center in 1968.
From these humble beginnings, Forest Service research in the South would go on to make enormous contributions to the region. In 1995, the early stations merged to become the Southern Research Station.
To mark the recent centennial, the Southern Research Station documented some of this history in a new General Technical Report, Celebrating 100 Years of Forest Science.
The Report is a collection of 18 articles spanning nearly the full century of the Experiment Stations – accompanied by historic photographs, maps, quotes, letters, and handwritten notes.
The articles tell the stories of the first southern forest survey, the agency’s first female forester – Margaret Stoughton Abell, the advent of statistically-designed studies, early publication series, new experimental forests, and much more.
In addition to the Report, the Forest Service Research Data Archive is home to hundreds of images and documents about the Southern Research Station’s history.