U.S. Forest Service researchers collecting data from seedling-count strips in northern Arizona’s Fort Valley Experimental Forest in 1913.

Northern Arizona has an amazing array of natural and cultural elements that draws scientists wanting to poke around and ponder. Flagstaff, a railroad stop since 1882, provides the jumping-off site for these researchers. They immediately see the impressive San Francisco Peaks, smell the Ponderosa Pine forest, catch their breath at the 7,000-foot altitude, shiver in the cool temperatures and are warmly welcomed into town.
This land did not join the United States until 1849 when the Treaty of Guadalupe was signed; and most Americans lacked any knowledge of the treasures located in what would later become Arizona. Government-funded expeditions by explorers and builders sought to create roads and railroads through the 35th parallel to make for easy travel between California and points east.
As roads were constructed across Arizona, builders wrote of the incomparable beauty and bountiful natural resources surrounding them. Their reports mentioned progressive native cultures, species of flora and fauna not seen anywhere else and miles of stately forests and unfenced grasslands.
Lumbermen and livestock operators read these glowing reports and quickly moved in, but they weren’t the only ones. Scientists also arrived, eager to study the virgin lands. John Wesley Powell led the first successful Anglo trip through the Grand Canyon in 1869 and ran it again in 1871. He occasionally left the Colorado River to explore, and his reports piqued further research interest. Botanist C. Hart Merriam studied the flora of the San Francisco Peaks in 1889, delighted to find six of the earth’s seven major life zones in this one area.
On Merriam’s second trip in 1896, he brought forester Bernhard Fernow who later wrote about the “happy accident” that transpired when he toured Arizona. His visit indirectly led to establishment of Forest Reserves, later the National Forests.  Archeologists, astronomers, geologists, botanists and biologists all wanted to work in northern Arizona, and many summer expeditions from eastern institutions made base camps in Flagstaff. Naturally, Flagstaff residents wanted to hear of the scientists’ discoveries, and an 1896 “Summer School of Science” lecture program brought many townspeople to the county courthouse on Monday and Thursday evenings. Talks were presented that year by Merriam, Fernow and Percival Lowell among others.
Settlers also wanted a piece of Arizona on which to farm and graze cattle, but found the aridity formidable and — fortunately for us today — much of the land was considered non-productive and thus remained in the public domain. This resulted in the government maintaining ownership of the majority of Arizona’s land in the form of national forests, monuments and parks, Indian reservations and other public lands. The amount of land available for study is a boon to scientists.
Successive scientists arrived to build upon the work of their predecessors. Tiny Flagstaff blossomed as a cutting-edge locale where scientists met on the street or in the grocery store or at club meetings and compared their findings. An ornithologist talking to an archeologist led to a method of dating archeological sites through the analysis of bird bones — and an entire new discipline called archeo-ornithology. It was similar to the way tree-ring dating was discovered by zoologist/archeologist Dr. Harold S. Colton, astronomer Andrew W. Douglass and forester Gustaf A. Pearson.
The environment led to the construction of permanent research and living facilities in Flagstaff including: Lowell Observatory (founded in 1894), USFS San Francisco Mountain Forest Reserve (1898 and now the Coconino National Forest), Northern Arizona University (1899), USFS Fort Valley Experimental Forest headquarters (1908), Museum of Northern Arizona (1928), U.S. Naval Observatory (1955), U.S. Geological Survey (1965), and the Arboretum (1981).
Those involved with these facilities also helped establish the area’s national monuments and parks including: Grand Canyon, Sunset Crater/Wupatki, Walnut Canyon, and Glen Canyon. Preservation of antiquities like Montezuma Castle and Well, Tuzigoot, and Meteor Crater were encouraged as well.
The early scientists’ foresight helped protect these unique Arizona resources for future generations. Flagstaff continues to be a scientists’ delight.
— S. D. Olberding. USFS photo 16931 by Hermann Krauch. Courtesy of the USFS Fort Valley Experimental Forest Archives.