Qualla: George Washington and Jefferson National Forests

George Washington and Jefferson National Forests: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0. On April 17, 1933, the first 200 young men of the Civilian Conservation Corps arrived at a camp near Luray, Virginia, in what was then the George Washington National Forest. The camp was designated NF-1 and named Camp Roosevelt, for the president whose first hundred days had just put it there. It was the first of more than 4,500 CCC camps that would eventually employ over three million unemployed young Americans during the Great Depression. They planted trees, cut firebreaks, built roads, fought fires, and earned $30 a month - most of which they sent home to their families. The forest where it all started is now part of a 1.8-million-acre national forest stretching from the Pennsylvania line south through Virginia and into Kentucky.

Image: Famartin | CC BY-SA 4.0

George Washington and Jefferson National Forests: Two Forests, One Administration

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kmusser, CC BY-SA 3.0. The George Washington National Forest, established in 1918, covers the northern Allegheny and Blue Ridge ranges in Virginia and West Virginia. The Jefferson National Forest, established in 1936, covers the southern Virginia mountains and extends into Kentucky. In 1995, the Forest...

Image: Kmusser | CC BY-SA 3.0

George Washington and Jefferson National Forests: Wilderness Within the Forest

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit US Forest Service - Southern Region, CC BY-SA 2.0. The forest contains 139,461 acres of designated wilderness across multiple individual areas, including Ramsey's Draft, the Mount Rogers area, and dozens of smaller tracts. In 2012, the New River Group of the Sierra Club commissioned a study of roadless areas in the forest and gro...

Image: US Forest Service - Southern Region | CC BY-SA 2.0

George Washington and Jefferson National Forests: Pipelines and Protest

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 2018 and 2019, the Mountain Valley Pipeline became one of the most contested infrastructure projects in the Eastern United States. The 303-mile natural-gas pipeline would cross the Jefferson National Forest and the Appalachian Trail near Peters Mountain. Protesters set up tree...

Image: Famartin | CC BY-SA 4.0

George Washington and Jefferson National Forests: Camp Roosevelt and the Long Memory

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bill Peoples, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Public domain. Camp Roosevelt, where CCC NF-1 was established in 1933, is now the Camp Roosevelt Recreation Area near Luray. Picnic tables and interpretive signs occupy the spot where young men once lived in barracks and learned forestry. The CCC reforested millions of acres of degraded land, b...

Image: Bill Peoples, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers | Public domain