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Les Joslin

Les Joslin is a retired U.S. Navy commander and a former U.S. Forest Service firefighter, wilderness ranger, and staff officer. A graduate of San Jose State College, he holds master's degrees from the University of Colorado and the University of London. He was an adjunct instructor for the College of Forestry at Oregon State University for 10 years and is author or editor of several books on Forest Service history.

Author's Entries

  • Camp Abbot

    Camp Abbot, located on the Deschutes River several miles south of Bend, was a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers training center where combat engineers trained during World War II. Established as an “engineer replacement training center,” it was the only such installation in the West. The other two were at …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Cyrus Bingham (1870-1937)

    Cyrus James “Cy” Bingham, an early U.S. forest ranger, served in Oregon’s Cascade Range from 1903 to 1920, the years when the forest reserves administered by the Department of the Interior were becoming national forests under the newly established U.S. Forest Service. A folk artist and poet, Bingham worked on lands that …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Elk Lake Guard Station

    In 1920, when a wagon road connected Bend with Elk Lake thirty-five miles to the west in the Deschutes National Forest, outdoor recreation boomed in the area. National forest campgrounds were built, summer home sites were leased, and Elk Lake Lodge was constructed in 1922. By 1924, there was an …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Paulina Lake Guard Station

    The Civilian Conservation Corps built Paulina Lake Guard Station in 1938 on the south shore of the larger of the two lakes within the Newberry Caldera on the Deschutes National Forest. As a satellite of a U.S. Forest Service ranger station, the guard station was staffed by a seasonal forest …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Thornton Munger (1883-1975)

    Thornton Taft Munger was the first director of the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Forest Experiment Station (later the Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station and now the Pacific Northwest Research Station). Since its founding in 1924, the Station has brought its extensive scientific capabilities to bear on every …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Walter Perry (1873-1959)

    Walter Julian Perry arrived in Bend, Oregon, on New Year's Day 1925. He had been transferred by the U.S. Forest Service from the Carson National Forest in New Mexico to the Deschutes National Forest for a specific reason: he was a forester possessed of a timber management ethic essential to …

    Oregon Encyclopedia