Agricultural development and cultivation on steep lands caused severe soil erosion across the nation in the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties, leading the United States Department of Agriculture to establish the Soil Conservation Service in nineteen thirty-five. In the hills of Coshocton County, the Soil Conservation Service created the North Appalachian Experimental Watershed to study and develop methods for conserving soil and water resources. The federal government and Coshocton County purchased one thousand forty-seven acres for the program, and in nineteen thirty-six field research equipment was installed and buildings were constructed. Near the program’s beginning, labor was provided by the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps, and during World War Two by the Civilian Public Service Agency. The North Appalachian Experimental Watershed became known worldwide for developing water measurement instrumentation, including the Coshocton wheel, a rotating sampler powered by flowing runoff, and weighing lysimeters, sixty-five-ton blocks of natural soil that measure surface runoff, evaporation, percolation, and water storage. It also pioneered no-till and conservation tillage agriculture to reduce runoff and erosion in fields. Other accomplishments included improving grazing management, supporting development of the curve number method used worldwide to estimate runoff, and conducting a landmark study on mining and reclamation effects in southeast Ohio. A reorganization in nineteen fifty-four transferred the station to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, and in nineteen seventy-three The Ohio State University’s Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Service Center became a partner until the station closed in twenty fifteen.