Santiam State Forest is a 47,871-acre state forest on the western slope of Oregon’s Cascade Mountains, southeast of Salem, spanning parts of Clackamas, Linn, and Marion counties. Once owned largely by timber companies and heavily logged from 1880 to 1930, much of the land entered public ownership during the Great Depression and was assembled by the state from 1939 into the early 1950s. A major 1951 fire burned nearly half the forest, followed by rapid replanting. Today it is managed for timber revenue, watershed protection, habitat, and recreation, with diverse wildlife, fish streams, old-growth patches, and popular trails and falls.