Wisconsin has a storied history of lumberjacks and logging in the mid to late 1800s that utilized our rich forests to provide resources to cities and towns throughout the nation. By the 1920s, much of northern Wisconsin had been exposed to over-harvesting and forest fires. Families settled in the area to use the cut, burned, and cleared land for farming however, it was not suitable for farming. These abandoned farmlands became tax delinquent. A few visionaries played key roles in the beginning and development of the school forest program.
In the mid-1920s, H.L. Russell, Dean of the University of Wisconsin College of Agriculture visited Australia and observed schoolchildren planting trees on public tracts of land as an educational project. He thought it would be an idea that could be put to practical use in his home state. By 1927, Russell’s plan was on its way to becoming reality through legislation he spearheaded that permitted school districts to own land for forestry programs.
Any bright spot in the economy of northern Wisconsin depended on either the slow, natural forest regrowth or an aggressive reforestation program. McNeel, a state 4-H leader in the 1920s, had a vision for Wisconsin’s resources – for both land and youth. And so, through sweat and dedication, Wisconsin schoolchildren became conservation stewards, or caretakers, as they replanted a Wisconsin their children and grandchildren could be proud of. Motivated by this legislation, and supercharged by McNeel and his colleague, Fred Trenk, a UW-Extension forester, and the Forest County residents, Wisconsin adopted the idea of school forests to promote an urgent reforestation program. Within the year, three tracts of land were donated or purchased for the first school forests in Wisconsin – in Laona, Crandon, and Wabeno. They were dedicated in the spring of 1928. Legislation was passed in 1935 mandating that conservation education be taught in all high schools, vocational schools, and universities or colleges. School forests provided great outdoor classrooms for this type of education, and now seemed to have a firm place in a new and exciting educational movement.
Want to learn more? Listen to recordings of McNeel’s weekly radio show ‘Afield with Ranger Mac’ from years 1933-1954, or an interview with Fred Trenk from 1961.