Historical Timbering, Mining, & Agriculture

Clinton County was once considered one of the most remote parts of Pennsylvania and was likely densely covered with white pine, eastern hemlock, and hardwoods such as American beech. Soon after settlement, a growing demand for lumber led to widespread timbering, and most of the area's trees were cut and floated down the West Branch of the Susquehanna to Williamsport, then the lumber capital of the world. By the 1920s, much of the county was treeless and barren, and the environmental effects were severe: sediment washed into local waters, soil health declined, streams and rivers became polluted, and warmer water temperatures made them unsuitable for some stream animals. Brook trout, Pennsylvania's only native trout species, which had once lived in most of Clinton County's streams and rivers, was then largely gone. Parts of the county also contained coal and clay reserves, and as the lumber boom reached its peak in the late 1800s and early 1900s, coal and clay extraction increased as well. That mining boom continued through both world wars before declining in the 1950s. Before the late 1970s, laws did not exist to ensure environmentally responsible mining, and decades of unregulated extraction left many miles of lifeless streams and rivers polluted by mine drainage, with orange and white stream beds appearing in watersheds including Beech Creek, Kettle Creek, Cooks Run, and Tangascootack Creek. Agriculture also contributed to environmental damage because for many years plowing was thought to be the best way to farm; thousands of acres were plowed, disked, and harrowed each year, degrading soils, increasing erosion, reducing organic matter, compacting the soil, and sending more water, soil, and nutrients into streams when it rained. In the 1970s, newer practices such as no-till and cover cropping began to be adopted to restore soils and reduce farming's environmental impacts. After the lumber boom, the state bought thousands of acres of barren land from lumber companies and began replanting them with help from the Civilian Conservation Corps, a nationwide program that promoted natural resource conservation in every state while providing manual labor jobs for young men during the Great Depression.

Pennsylvania · United States