Wayne National Forest

Wayne National Forest is southeastern Ohio’s only national forest, spread across the rugged Unglaciated Allegheny Plateau in the Athens, Marietta, and Ironton units. Created in 1935 through federal land purchases, it emerged from a region heavily cleared after the 1795 Treaty of Greenville, where poor farming, logging, and mining had left erosion and depleted soils. Its broken terrain of ridges, hollows, ravines, and stream corridors supports mixed hardwood forests, pine in some reclaimed uplands, and diverse wildlife. The forest also serves recreation and long-distance trails, while recent disputes over its name and proposed fracking have kept its history and future under active debate.

Trimble, Ohio · United States