The creation of the National Forest Service in 1905 brought Elers Koch, one of the nation’s first professional foresters, to inspect and evaluate the Forest Reserves of Montana and Wyoming. After being appointed Forest Supervisor of the Bitterroot and Lolo National Forests in 1907, he found the abandoned homestead of a German settler named Savennach and chose it as the site for a tree nursery. Work began in 1908, and as the first pine seedlings were ready for transplant in 1910, a fire swept through the region and scorched 3 million acres of timberland. The nursery was destroyed, but the disaster shaped Forest Service policy by making fire prevention and conservation its primary mission, with reforestation of burned and logged areas an important part of that goal. Savenac Nursery was well placed along two railroad routes, and the historic Mullen Road passed through the property. It was quickly rebuilt, and around 1912 national road improvements incorporated the new Yellowstone Trail into this segment of the Mullan Road. In 1916, Savenac shipped several million seedlings across the vast Northern Region. Between 1932 and 1948, the Civilian Conservation Corps rebuilt and modernized the facility for the last time. Savenac became the largest tree nursery in the northwest, producing up to twelve million trees each year, and it operated until regional reorganization brought its closure in 1969. As a place where much of the theory and practice of silviculture was pioneered, Savenac reflects the Forest Service’s conservation ethic.