Wilderness advocates delay removal of tree ‘Yellowstone Forest Reserve’
surveyors inscribed in 1893
[September 10, 2026]
By MIKE KOSHMRL/WyoFile
Public opposition will slow plans to remove and display a section of a
dead Shoshone National Forest tree that surveyors mapping Yellowstone
Forest Reserve boundaries inscribed 133 years ago.
The dead Engelmann spruce still stands about 28 miles from the nearest
trailhead in the Washakie Wilderness. Plans to recover the artifact via
helicopter have been underway for years, and there’s even a place in the
Wyoming State Museum to display it.
But as plans advanced, federal land managers did not loop in the general
public nor advocacy groups whose mission it is to uphold the Wilderness
Act. When they ultimately learned about the project, advocates publicly
objected — and let Shoshone National Forest Supervisor Ken Coffin know
it.
“I got probably somewhere around 200 emails from people from across the
country who had legitimate concerns about the project because it’s in
the wilderness,” Coffin told WyoFile. “Admittedly, we worked with the
folks who believe that the removal is an appropriate thing to do — I
happen to be in that camp — but we didn’t really work with the other
side. I thought they had a point.”
Concerns about the tree removal emanated from Wilderness Watch, a
Missoula, Montana-based advocacy group that seeks to preserve and
steward lands and rivers in the National Wilderness Preservation System.
In mid-August, Katie Bilodeau, the group’s legislative director and
policy analyst, wrote a blog post encouraging folks to send the Shoshone
National Forest their thoughts about the tree removal plan.
Readers wrote in droves contesting the plan, which required a “ minimum
requirements analysis ” because the tree removal would require use of a
helicopter and other mechanical equipment in designated wilderness,
where it’s not normally allowed.
“It would have also included at least four helicopter landings in the
wilderness,” Bilodeau told WyoFile. “Wilderness is a place where nature
should govern. We shouldn’t be so eager to jump in with our tools,
because we can radically alter things pretty quickly.”
After hearing from Bilodeau and others, Coffin paused the project. As a
result, the beetle-killed tree will not leave the remote reaches of the
southern Absaroka Mountains in 2026.
And it might stay in the 9,100-foot-high basin permanently. The Shoshone
National Forest is in talks with Wyoming State Parks about using a 3D
scan to create a replica of the inscribed tree instead of displaying the
real thing in Cheyenne.
“If we walk away from that meeting feeling like that (3D scan) serves
our purpose,” Coffin said, “then it’s possible that we would not remove
the tree.”
If project proponents, led by Wyoming State Parks, aren’t appeased by
that plan, then the Shoshone National Forest would resume its approval
process for removing the tree.
The tree in question has been researched by historian Lawrence Todd, a
Colorado State University emeritus professor who lives in Meeteetsee.
Surveyors inscribed the spruce on Oct. 3, 1893 while mapping the
Yellowstone Forest Reserve, which is the forebear to the Shoshone
National Forest. The mapping party, led by Phillip M. Gallaher, took
shelter near the tree during a snowstorm that slowed their surveying and
carved their names into its trunk “probably out of boredom, more than
anything else,” Todd told WyoFile in early 2024.
[to top of second column]
|
Its historic value is clear. The tree was inscribed just 21 years
after Yellowstone National Park’s establishment and three years
after Wyoming gained statehood, and it’s a reminder of Americans’
early efforts to “reserve” some forests rather than harvest them
all. The 1.2 million-acre forest reserve designated in 1891, was the
first piece of land set aside for inclusion in what would eventually
become the National Forest System.
A century and three decades later, the tree was standing dead. In
2024, Wyoming lawmakers debated setting aside some funding to
recover the inscribed section and temporarily put it on display at
the Wyoming State Museum in Cheyenne. Long-term, the plan is to put
the tree section at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West Museum in
Cody.
The first attempt at funding died, but Wyoming State Parks secured a
$25,000 allocation during the Legislature’s 2025 session, plus
another chunk of money through a state grant program to celebrate
the American sesquicentennial anniversary.
State Parks Director Dave Glenn told WyoFile on Tuesday he agrees
with Coffin’s decision to “slow roll” the project to “make sure
everybody’s supportive” of it. And Glenn’s open to 3D printing a
hologram of the tree — he’s seen the scans and said they turned out
really well.
Still, Glenn prefers that the tree be removed from the wilderness so
it doesn’t topple over and rot.
“From our perspective, we’d still like to get the tree (out of)
there, just because it’s so historic,” Glenn said. “That history is
going to go away. It’s going to fall down and be gone.”
Bilodeau at Wilderness Watch, meanwhile, has shared gratitude for
Coffin pausing the project. On Tuesday, she wrote another blog piece
commending that decision and thanking her members for writing to the
national forest.
“Y’all saved the survey tree,” she wrote. “While trees don’t have as
many lives as cats do, they do have a meaningful second life when
they die and become snags, spending years giving back to the
ecosystem that had given them life… Removing this ‘deceased’ tree
would have devalued this tree’s second life as a snag.”
While it remains to be seen if wilderness advocates will succeed at
permanently preventing the survey tree’s removal, it would not be
the first time their advocacy has shaped or slowed projects planned
in designated wilderness in Wyoming. In 2017, the Bridger-Teton
National Forest caught an earful about its plans to helicopter in a
new Yellowstone River bridge at Hawks Rest, though the bridge was
ultimately replaced four years later.
Plans to stock naturally fishless Mystery Lake in the Teton
Wilderness also were scrapped in 2016 as a result of concerns shared
by wilderness proponents.
All contents © copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
