Below is a brief history of the Cottonwood Canyons

All images USFS, unless otherwise noted

Mill B

Soon after their arrival, settlers built lumber mills in canyons along the Wasatch Front.

Mill A, B, C, D, and E are names in our canyons reminding us today of the locations of a once thriving lumber industry.

Mining Camp

Timber was used for construction within the Salt Lake Valley, for construction of mines within the canyons, and as fuel for miners and early settlers.

Timber harvesting

By the end of the 1800s, timber harvests had removed many of the largest trees

Town of Alta

In those canyons of the central Wasatch where mining activities thrived, deforestation impacts were greatest.

Here is a photo of the denuded lands surrounding the mining town of Alta in Little Cottonwood Canyon.

Albion Basin

Looking above Alta and into the Albion Basin, we see that by 1885 few trees remained given the demand for timber to support mine shafts and as fuel to survive cold winters.

Sheep grazing

Additionally, large herds of sheep grazed across the Wasatch Mountains in the late 1800s, adding more pressure to these mountain sites and further destabilizing an impacted landscape.

1926 Ecological study

By the early 1900s, over-cutting and over-grazing had resulted in such extensive forest damage that the newly established U.S. Forest Service stepped in to develop a re-forestation program.


Source: Evans, P. Alan. 1926. An ecological study in Utah. Botanical Gazette 82:253-285.

Spruces Nursery

By 1910, the U.S. Forest Service had created the Wasatch nursery in Big Cottonwood Canyon in an area now known as the Spruces Campground.

Wasatch Nursery

Millions of conifer trees, including Douglas fir and subalpine fir, as well as grasses were germinated and allowed to grow for two years in the Wasatch Nursery.

Trees not common to the Wasatch

Other trees not common to the Wasatch were also raised in this nursery, but apparently not planted elsewhere.

These included ponderosa pine, western white pine, lodgepole pine, and western larch.

Many of these remnant trees can still be seen in the Spruces Campground area today.

Preparing trees for transplant

Preparing trees for transplanting back onto the hillsides required extensive manpower.

Revegetation

Even more manpower and large teams were required to re-vegetate the hillsides with the trees we enjoy across the landscape today.

Planting trees

Conifer trees, such as Douglas fir, were planted on the hillsides and often mixed with young aspen stands to create today’s landscape.

Nursery planting

By the mid 1920s, the work of the Wasatch nursery had been completed and the nursery was then abandoned.

“It is a wonderfully interesting subject—this planting of humble seedlings which a hundred years from now will have grown to be mighty forests, protecting the invaluable watersheds of the country.”

– James M. Fetherolf, District Chief of Planting
(Ogden Standard Examiner, December 17, 1908)

The Spruces

Today only a few reminders persist of this important program a century ago. Enjoy our Wasatch forests and look for the non-native trees the next time you are in the Spruces Campground area.