Industrial Logging Era (c. 1880-1920)

Agricultural expansion continued after the Civil War (1861–65) and into the 20th century. By the late 1800s, large-scale timber extraction emerged as a complementary driver of change in southern forests. With diminishing supply from the Great Lakes region, industrial logging in the United States shifted its focus to the South in the 1880s. Logging technology, capital, and expertise flowed into the region. Railroad networks provided relatively rapid, mass transport for logs. As a result of these and other factors, large-scale logging activity in the region accelerated; by 1919, the region was producing 37 percent of U.S. lumber.¹ In short, the ecosystem service of timber became a dominant value of the forest.

During this era, much of the remaining primary or virgin forests of the South were cut (Figure 3.2). Forests regenerated on some logged-over areas, while agriculture and grazing moved in on others. By the end of this era, southern forests reached their lowest extent in terms of acreage. After nearly three centuries, southern forest area had declined to approximately 213 million acres by 1920. By this time, a sizable share of the South’s landscape was composed of farmland and southern forest cover had become thinner and more fragmented (Figure 3.6).

Source: WRI analysis based on reconstructed historical land cover (Steyaert and Knox 2008) and administrative boundaries (ESRI Data and Maps 9.3.1, ESRI 2008).