320 ChapTEr 13 | a Gilded aGe | period Six 1865 –1898
Document 13.11 BENJaMiN HaRRiSoN, Presidential
Proclamation, wyoming
1891In this proclamation, President Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901) created the first of what
became the national forests, known initially as the Yellowstone Park Timberland Reserve.Whereas it is provided by section twenty four of an Act approved March the
third, eighteen hundred and ninety one, entitled an act to repeal timber-culture
laws, and for other purposes: “that the President of the United States may, from
time to time, set apart and reserve, in any State or Territory having public land
bearing forests, in any part of the public lands wholly or in part covered with
timber or undergrowth, whether of commercial value or not, as public reserva-
tions, and the President shall, by public proclamation, declare the establishment
of such reservations and limits thereof.”
Now therefore, I Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States by virtue
of the power in me vested, do hereby make known and proclaim that there has
been and is hereby reserved from entry or settlement and set apart for a public
forest reservation all that tract of land situate in the State of Wyoming contained
within the following described boundaries.
Beginning at a point on the parallel of forty four degrees fifty minutes, where
said parallel is intersected by the meridian of one hundred and ten degrees west
longitude, thence due east along said parallel to the meridian of one hundred
and nine degrees and thirty minutes west longitude; thence due south along said
meridian to the forty fourth parallel of north latitude; thence due west along
said parallel to its point of intersection with the west boundary of the State of
Wyoming; thence due north along said boundary line to its intersection with the
south boundary of the Yellowstone National Park.
Warning is hereby expressly given to all persons not to enter or make settle-
ment upon the tract of land reserved by this proclamation.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the
United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington this 30th day of March in the year of our
Lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety one, and of the Independence of the
United States the one hundred and fifteenth.The Statutes at Large of the United States of America from December, 1889, to March, 1891,
and Recent Treaties, Conventions, and Executive Proclamations, vol. 26 (Washington, DC:
Government Printing Office, 1891), 1565.TopIC II | discontents of the New economy 32114_STA_2012_ch13_307-326.indd 321 31/03/15 4:11 PM