Nebraska National Forest

United States National Forest

The Nebraska National Forest is a United States National Forest located within the U. S. state of Nebraska. The total area of the national forest is 141,864 acres, or 222 sq miles (574 km2). The forest is managed by the U. S. Forest Service's Nebraska Forests and Grasslands Supervisor's Office in Chadron, Nebraska. The national forest includes two ranger districts, the Bessey Ranger District and the Pine Ridge Ranger District. In descending order of land, the forest lies in parts of Thomas, Dawes, Blaine, and Sioux counties.

The Nebraska National Forests & Grasslands began in 1902 as an experiment. University of Nebraska botany professor Charles Edwin Bessey, with the assistance of Gifford Pinchot, first Forest Service Chief, convinced President Theodore Roosevelt to set aside two treeless tracts of Nebraska sandhills as “forest reserves." Bessey’s intent was to grow trees, which would offset what some thought would be a national timber shortage from large fires, unregulated harvest, and the country’s growing appetite for wood products. Nebraska National Forest was established on November 15, 1907 by the consolidation of three smaller forests: Dismal River, Niobrara and North Platte National Forests. The Niobrara district is now known as the Samuel R. McKelvie National Forest. The national grasslands and the native ponderosa pine forest of Nebraska’s Pine Ridge area were added to the National Forest System in the 1950s. The nearly 1.1 million acres administered by the Nebraska National Forests & Grasslands are scattered across a large arc extending from central Nebraska west to the northern Panhandle, into southwestern South Dakota and on east to the state’s center.

The Bessey Ranger District is in the Sandhills of central Nebraska. Encompassing about 63.9% of the forest's total area, it lies in parts of Thomas and Blaine counties. It was established in 1902 by Charles E. Bessey because he believed the area to have once had a natural forest and as an experiment to see if forests could be recreated in treeless areas of the Great Plains for use as a national timber reserve. This effort resulted in a forest, the largest human planted forest in the United States. Today the forest's nursery supplies 2.5 to 3 million seedlings per year. The Bessey Tree Nursery is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. There is a local ranger district office in Halsey.

The presence of the artificial forest in the Great Plains has allowed multiple species to colonize the area, including birds such as red breasted nuthatch Sitta canadensis and the pine siskin Spinus pinus.

The Pine Ridge Ranger District is in the Pine Ridge region of northwest Nebraska. It contains about 36.1% of the forest's total area, and it lies in part of Dawes and Sioux counties. The native ponderosa forests were added to the National Forest system in the 1950s. The Soldier Creek Wilderness, a federally designated wilderness area, is in the forest. The 6,600 acre Pine Ridge National Recreation Area is located within the ranger district.