Tony Balistreri, Black Hills National Forest, Recreation Tech -

This is the case #1 timber sale and we are cutting down a couple of trees today for some cants which 12 ft long 11 in x 11 in beams that are going to go to a museum for historical saw mills. Craig Bobzien (BKNF Forest Supervisor) had contacted them and figured that since this was the first timber sale in the nation thought they should have some timber up there that represent this first timber sale.

The first timber sale was in 1899 and it was actually set up at the Merit Estes mill area and then eventually moved over to the Nemo sawmill site.

I’m cutting two today, we harvested two trees last year that were cut into commemorative type of placs, case 1 timber sale placs and some coat racks with the history and case 1 logo on them that are handed out for a job well done.

We are pretty proud to have the first timber sale in the nation on our forest and for me to have it on my district is just great. There’s a lot of history here around the Nemo area and this being one of them.

These trees we are cutting now we had cored, so that they are at least 120 years old and they were the little jack pine trees that were growing when that timber sale was being carried out here. These one’s we are cutting today were probably ten years old and that they lasted throughout all of the other timber harvests that have been going on in this are, there have been quite a few since 1899.