File:1911. W.B. Turner and H.E. Burke (37317668641).jpg

USDA Bureau of Entomology Forest Insect Station Number 6. W.B. Turner (left) special agent in charge of cooperation with private owners; and H.E. Burke, Agent and Expert in charge of the Northeastern Oregon Bark Beetle Control Project. Baker, Oregon.

Photo by: Unknown Date: 1911

Credit: USDA Forest Service, Region 6, State and Private Forestry, Forest Health Protection. Source: H.E. Burke Collection digital files; Regional Office; Portland, Oregon.

This photo and the following excerpt are from: H.E. Burke. 1946. My Recollections of the First Years in Forest Entomology. Berkeley, California. 37 p. <a href="https://www.fs.fed.us/sites/default/files/recollections-on-forest-entomology.pdf" rel="nofollow">www.fs.fed.us/sites/default/files/recollections-on-forest...</a>

"The Northeastern Oregon [Bark Beetle] Forest Control Project really started August 17, 1907, when at the request of Supervisor Howard O'Brien of the Imnaha (Wallowa) National Forest I examined dying lodgepole and yellow pine on teh divide between Little Sheep and Big Sheep Creek near Joseph, Oregon. The mountain pine beetle was found to be the main depredator, but the western pine beetle was also present in the yellow pine. During the preceding three years, 90 to 95 percent of the lodgepole and much of the yellow pine had been killed on the area of over 100,000 acres.

During the spring of 1910, W.C. Calter, an agent of the Wallowa Timber Company of Warren, Pennsylvania, stationed at Baker, Oregon, became alarmed at the dying yellow pine near Baker and started a movement among the private owners to have something done about it. From the Forest Service he heard of the Office of Forest Insect Investigations and started corresponding with Dr. A.D. Hopkins. Forest Ranger W.D. Edmonston of Colorado and I were ordered to Baker to represent the Bureau of Entomology at a meeting of private owners, forest officials and others interested in protecting the timber. Private owners from Baker, La Grande, Portland and Spokane were present and forest officers from Portland and Sumpter (Whitman) National Forest. ... August 3, 1910, Agent W.B. Turner arrived from Washington, D.C. with instructions to work with the private owners of timber and help them to organize and work for an appropriation for forest insect control work in the area."

For more information about this bark beetle control project see: Burke, H. E., and B. E. Wickman. 1990. Northeastern Oregon bark beetle control project 1910-11. PNW-GTR-249. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 55 p. <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/26285" rel="nofollow">www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/26285</a>

For a Forest Service account (by Ephraim Barnes and Henry Irelan) of the control work done on the Whitman National Forest, see: <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fsbdev7_015536.pdf" rel="nofollow">www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fsbdev7_015536.pdf</a>

For additional historical forest entomology photos, stories, and resources see the Western Forest Insect Work Conference site: <a href="http://wfiwc.org/content/history-and-resources" rel="nofollow">wfiwc.org/content/history-and-resources</a>