Gilchrist State Forest First new state forest in 60 years

http://www.oregonlottery.org/Good/ShowProject.aspx?Project=201010_G...

There’s been a lot of talk over the past 10 years about the word ‘green’. Green cars. Green homes. Green catering companies. But what about the good old literal green? As in green trees? Well, we haven’t forgotten. We’re Oregonians, after all. That’s why Lottery funds helped purchase 67-square-miles of land called The Gilchrist State Forest—Oregon’s first new state forest in 60 years. Not since the Sun Pass forest acquisition of the late 1940s has there been such a significant purchase of private forest land by the state of Oregon. It won’t be sold. It won’t be parceled out. It will remain intact. It will be a home for wildlife. It will preserve watersheds. It will be managed responsibly with selective harvests to create new jobs. Because protecting our great state isn’t a trend or a buzzword or a movement. Protecting Mother Nature is simply second nature.

Providing funding support for Gilchrist State Forest is just one of the many ways Lottery profits give back to the environment and to the people of Oregon.

For more information on Gilchrist State Forest visit their website at:

http://www.oregon.gov/ODF/STATE_FORESTS/gilchrist.shtml
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/05/mill_town_gilchris...

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/06/in_gilchrist_a_...

Does this look like a forest that needed saving from greedy loggers by the state?

Does not look like it to me. From 1938 to 1991 this land was owned and managed by the Gilchrist family. They provided family wage jobs and a great lifestyle for their employees and their families. This timber company was a model for genuine timber management and environmental responsibility for almost 60 years. I remember when the family decided to take the money and run in 1991. It ended an era in Oregon.

History

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilchrist,_Oregon

Gilchrist was the last lumber company town in Oregon. The town was founded in 1938 by the family-owned Gilchrist Timber Company, with Frank and Mary Gilchrist as the owners and town founders. The mill moved there from Jasper County, Mississippi, in search of lumber and lower taxes, building a dam on the Little Deschutes River to create the mill pond. In 1939, Gilchrist School was built by the Public Works Administration.

The company was sold to Crown Pacific Partners in 1991, which subsequently fired all its employees. The 120 homes and other facilities in the town were subsequently sold to residents and others in 1997, with Crown Pacific retaining the sawmill and timberland. Prior to this sale, all houses in the town were painted in Gilchrist brown (with the exception of a small area on the north end of town called Rainbow Circle by its residence). The timberland and the town's sawmill, upgraded to handle smaller logs in 2000, were among the last remaining assets of Crown Pacific, which declared bankruptcy in 2003 and was taken over by creditors at the end of 2004, and again bought by Canadian company Interfor Pacific in 2006. As of 2009, the kindergarten through twelfth grade school had an enrollment of 238 students.