Dolly Sods

            The Effects of Human Influence on the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area.
             In William Howard Taft's 1909 inaugural address he said that, "The putting into force of laws which shall secure the conservation of our resources, as far as they may be within the jurisdiction of the Federal government, including the more important work of saving and restoring our forests and the great improvement of waterways, are all proper government functions which must involve large expenditure if properly performed." And in line with its proper functioning, Congress passed the Wilderness Act in 1965, which helped protect 9 million acres of land. But almost all of this land was in the West, due to the lack of unspoiled wildlands in the East. So in 1975, Congress passed the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act, which brought protection to several rehabilitated wildlands. One of which being the Dolly Sods wilderness area in West Virginia, an area decimated by human influence in the early 20th and late 19th centuries, which is now being rehabilitated. Before decades of logging, railroads, mortars, grazing, and fire, the Dolly Sods Wilderness was a majestic and lush forest supporting some of the finest red spruce in the world. Today the area, which has been clear-cut then burned to rock, is slowly recovering under the protection of the U.S. Forest Service.
             In 1746 Thomas Lewis was the first European to explore the Dolly Sods while doing a survey of Lord Fairfax's Virginia estate. He found the forest in its virgin state and described it as almost impenetrable. It was covered at that time mostly by red spruce, but hemlocks balsam fir, sugar maple, American beech, black cherry, basswood and yellow birch also abounded. In certain areas there were thick patches of loral and rhododendron thickets. There were also many wet, marshy bogs where bluejoint grass grew several feet high. The forest floor was covered with a rich humus soil several feet thick that in many places rarely, if ever, received sunlight.