History of the Cloquet Forestry Center

Old fire tower in Esker.The Cloquet Forestry Center, which started in 1909 as an experimental and demonstration forest, is administered by the University of Minnesota's College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences.

The Center resulted from the vision and enthusiasm of Professor Samuel B. Green, the founder and first head of the University's forestry school. He advocated establishing a forestry field station as early as 1896.

Green also felt that a forestry field station should be located in the vicinity of an important sawmill center. The town of Cloquet at that time easily met those requirements, but it was the opening of the land in the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation for sale to outsiders that provided the opportunity to establish the research forest.

Green received support from the sawmills in Cloquet, led by the Weyerhaeuser family, for creating a school forest. It was the kind of support that brought together, in 1909, the necessary federal and state legislation and sufficient funding to permit the federal government to deed 2,215 acres of unallotted lands directly to the University of Minnesota. The Reservation land was purchased for $1.25 per acre, plus the value of the timber on it.

The initial block of 2,215 acres was paid for by the St. Louis River Mercantile Company with the understanding that while the title to the land would go to the University, the timber rights would be retained by the company. St. Louis River Mercantile cut most of the white and red pine on the tract in 1910, under the supervision of the Indian Service.

Old log house.The Northern Lumber Company owned the timber rights on several smaller tracts of land deeded to the University, and at the request of the University, agreed to leave several areas uncut. The uncut wood amounted to 109,000,000 board feet of white pine and 1,188,000 board feet of red pine. Northern was reimbursed by the University for the price that was paid to the Reservation for that timber. An additional 447 acres were purchased from Indian allotments.

The purchase of several more small tracts over the years, and the acquisition of several gifts of land, have increased the Center to its present size.

The Center has experienced several name changes since its establishment. In chronological order, it was the Forestry Station, Forest Experiment Station, Experimental Forest, and Forest Research Center, before recieving its current name, Cloquet Forestry Center (B.A. Brown, 1960).