Status Updates From The Fires of Penn's Woods

4 random notes: I never thought of the 1904 chestnut blight affecting forest fires but the dead trees made a huge impact; Pack Horse Firefighters; Theodore Roosevelt's 1908 speech, 'Conservation as a National Duty,' State Police were tasked with helping to fight forest fires.

Loved reading more about Gifford Pinchot; THRILLED to be introduced to botanist and conservationist Mira Lloyd Dock (1853-1945); and to read more about the standing up of the Pennsylvania State Forest Academy at Mont Alto in 1903. I've visited the campus several times in the last two months and I try to imagine what it looked like over 120 years ago.

from page 32: "In one house in the outskirts this evening a woman was nearing her accouchement when the flames surrounded the building, and for one hour they played on the house, which was several times on fire, the child being born while the roof was ablaze." Oh my goodness!

I'm surprised how little newspapers reported on forest fires in the late 1800s and can imagine Mr. Klimkos's research took a while to compile. "Never a newspaper to waste words, The Carbon Advocate, of Leighton in Carbon County, reported on April 16, 1887 that, "Forest fires are raging in many sections.""