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SAGA OF A FOREST RANGER
A Biography of William R. Kreutzer, Forest Ranger No. 1, and
A Historical Account of the U.S. Forest Service in Colorado
BY
LEN SHOEMAKER
FOREWORD
The colorful career of William Richard Kreutzer, retired forest supervisor, interwoven with the early forestry movement in Colorado, has long been considered historically important. Members of the Denver Regional Office of the U.S. Forest Service had wanted a record of his official life years before it was authorized by the Government.
Consequently, William A. Du Puy was assigned to the task by the Washington Office, in 1941. He worked directly with Kreutzer at Fort Collins, and together they assembled considerable data on early ranger activities. Then, unfortunately, Du Puy suddenly died.
In 1943, Regional Forester Allen S. Peck assigned me to the task. The notes and work of Du Puy and Kreutzer were made available for my use, and credit for what they had already accomplished is given. Kreutzer, afterwards, furnished an abundance of material when we met for personal discussions at his home. Other information was added as it was found, and the result was a very disorderly arranged story. To remedy this and other imperfections, I have revised the manuscript.
I am grateful to F. R. Johnson, C. J. Stahl, and Colonel Peck of the Denver Office (the last two now deceased) C. E. Randall, of the Washington Office, and L. R. Hafen, former State Historian of Colorado, who read the original manuscript and gave official and professional assistance. I sincerely thank these men, and others, who have given help.
The following Introduction from the pen of the late Gifford Pinchot, our first Chief, is gratefully acknowledged, and I again thank Mr. Randall for having secured it.
Denver, Colorado
July 7, 1955
Len Shoemaker
Retired forest ranger
*****
August 17, 1944
Bill Kreutzer was the first United States Forest Ranger ever appointed. No other has ever served so long. {1} Forty-one years, from August 8, 1898 to October 31, 1939forty-one years during which the whole color and content of Government forestry in America were completely changed.
When Bill Kreutzer was appointed to protect public forests from fires or any other means of injury in the State of Coloradoone Ranger for a whole Statenot a single acre of Government forest land in Colorado or anywhere else was under forest management. Not only so, but the U.S. Forest Reserves were in charge of the General Land Office, which knew nothing about forestry, and whose fundamental purpose was to turn all public resources in its charge over to private ownership as fast as possible and with the least practicable inquiry as to whether the law had been violated or not.
Into this Land Office mismanagement of the public property by political appointees in the field and ignorant clerks in Washington, this combination of farce, fraud, and (at times) finicky insistence on the letter of unworkable regulations, came Bill Kreutzer, a youngster of twenty, resolute, intelligent, enterprising, with a real interest in the forests and the mountains, and a genuine determination to do the right thing. Here is the saga of his long hard fight.
When Bill began his work for Uncle Sam, the West was nearly everywhere, and not least in Colorado, firmly set against practically every form of government control. For this the General Land Office was in no small part responsible, through its constant and consistent failure to enforce the law. Largely because of it, the West had formed the habit of lawbreaking, and that man was rare who looked down on his neighbor because he broke the law.
The larger cattlemen, sheepmen, lumbermen, and the great railroad, mining, and water power corporations regarded the public domain as their natural prey, and the government officials who said them Nay were few indeed. Then, in 1905, came a change. The Forest Reserves (now the National Forests) were transferred from the Land Office in the Interior Department to the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture, and the curtain went up on a scene that was altogether new. At long last the law, and the regulations under the law, were going to be enforced.
This book is the story, the fascinating, realistic, convincing story of how Bill Kreutzer, the first Forest Ranger to be appointed, had to fight not only the trespassers and thieves, but his own superior officer, who did his best to prevent an honest and effective public servant from doing his duty, even to the extent of trying to get him killed.
This is the first part. After it comes the story of the new day, when Kreutzer and his superiors in the Forest Service were working for the same objectives, with the same understanding, and in the same spirit, and getting results. In this second part the ruling purpose was no longer somebodys political advantage, or somebodys chance to make money out of breaking the law, but the greatest good of the greatest number for the longest time, as Secretary Wilson put it in his famous letter to the Chief Forester on the day the Secretary put the Forest Reserves in his charge.
Bill Kreutzers struggle to clean up the mess is by far the most vital part of his story. I am glad it has been told, for in these days, when the National Forests stand high in public esteem and support, we are apt to forget both what it took to put them where they are, and the men who made the fight that had to be made to do it.
The part Bill Kreutzer played in that fight won him promotion, first to Forest Supervisor, and then to District Forest Inspector. What is far more, his loyalty and steadiness, his courage and common sense, won him the respect and affection of the Forest Service, as fine a body of men as ever served under this or any other Government. He who has that has not lived his life in vain.
