Hoosier National Forest spans four separate sections across the hills of southern Indiana, covering 204,303 acres and preserving a landscape shaped by both long human history and distinctive natural features. People have used this area for about 12,000 years, from Native American hunters to later settlers and loggers, whose intensive cutting left most of it cleared by 1910. Created on February 6, 1935, after erosion and economic decline prompted federal action, the forest includes sites tied to free Black settlement, archaeology, the Civil War, and Indiana’s only recognized wilderness area. It also protects caves, barrens, old-growth forest, wildlife habitat, and extensive trails for recreation.