Yellow River State Forest

Yellow River State Forest
Iowa State Park
Named for: Yellow River
Country	United States
State	Iowa
Counties	Allamakee
Location
- coordinates	43°9′18″N 91°14′36″W / 43.15500°N 91.24333°W / 43.15500; -91.24333Coordinates: 43°9′18″N 91°14′36″W / 43.15500°N 91.24333°W / 43.15500; -91.24333
Founded	1933
Managed by	Iowa Department of Natural Resources
Nearest city	Harpers Ferry, Iowa
Location of Yellow River State Forest in Iowa
Website : Yellow River State Forest

Yellow River State Forest, (YRSF), is mostly forested land owned by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. It is located in the southeastern corner of Allamakee County, the most northeasterly of Iowa's counties. It is adjacent to the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge and is just north of Effigy Mounds National Monument in the bluff region of the Upper Mississippi River.

History

The forest was established in 1933 by the Civilian Conservation Corps with the purchase of 1500 acres of land at the mouth of the Yellow River. It now has six units: Luster Heights, Paint Creek North, Paint Creek South, Paint Rock, Waukon Junction and Yellow River, collectively aggregating 8,503 acres (3,441 ha). The original 1,500 acres (610 ha) were transferred to the National Park Service in 1945, due to the presence of many Native American effigy mounds, and is now known as Effigy Mounds National Monument. The majority of YRSF is now in the catchment of Paint Creek. Some of the forest is reclaimed farmland, but much of it was never farmed because of the steepness of the terrain.

The State and the various Federal agencies actively cooperate in the management of the lands under their care, particularly in the use of fire to maintain goat prairies, which are found "on steep, thin soils with a south-southwest exposure. The best examples occur in northeast Iowa's Paleozoic Plateau, but similar prairie can be found in other parts of the state."^[1]

Geological history

The forest is located in the Driftless Area of Iowa, a region that was not glaciated during the last ice age. The geology of the region shows ancient Silurian period formations. The Yellow River and Paint Creek have rugged, steep walled canyons, showing millennia of erosion, where glacial action would have otherwise smoothed out the features.

Lumber production

Yellow River is home to one of only two public-owned sawmills in Iowa, with the other at Shimek State Forest, the first sawmill in Iowa was also located in Yellow River, which was built in the 1800s. About 150,000 board feet (350 m³) lumber of is annually harvested in the forest and processed by inmates at the minimum-security Luster Heights Prison Farm. The prisoners do other work in the forest as well. The lumber produced at the sawmill is used for state-related projects and can be produced for private orders. The type of wood produced at the sawmill depends on the type of wood that grows in the forest (mainly oak and hickory).

Yellow River Fire Tower

The forest includes the Yellow River Fire Tower, the only fire tower standing in Iowa. The tower is an Aermotor LS40 model fire tower sold to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources from the U.S. Forest Service. It was acquired in 1950 and rebuilt on the current site in 1962. Today it is in poor condition, most of the window sashes have been broken out, all the window glass is gone, some of the cab roofing is gone, and the wood on the stairs and in the cab has rotted away, most of this is due to vandalism. So for that and safety reasons, the tower was fenced in and is currently closed to the public.

Tower measurements

Tower height- 100 feet
Cab- 7x7 feet
Elevation- 1047 feet

References

↑ The Nature Conservancy in Iowa, "Community and Landform Descriptions", The Nature Conservancy, retrieved July 6, 2007

Sources

Protected areas of Iowa

Federal

National Monument	Effigy Mounds

National Historic Site	Herbert Hoover

National Wildlife Refuges	DeSoto Driftless Area Neal Smith Northern Tallgrass Prairie Port Louisa Union Slough Upper Mississippi River

State

State Parks	Ambrose A. Call Backbone Badger Creek Banner Lakes at Summerset Beeds Lake Bellevue Big Creek Black Hawk Brushy Creek Cedar Rock Clear Lake Dolliver Memorial Elk Rock Elinor Bedell Emerson Bay Fairport Fort Defiance Geode George Wyth Memorial Green Valley Gull Point Honey Creek Lacey-Keosauqua Lake Ahquabi Lake Anita Lake Darling Lake Keomah Lake MacBride Lake Manawa Lake of Three Fires Lake Wapello Ledges Lewis and Clark Maquoketa Caves Marble Beach McIntosh Woods Mines of Spain & E.B. Lyons Mini-Wakan Nine Eagles Okamanpedan Palisades-Kepler Pikes Peak Pikes Point Pilot Knob Pillsbury Point Pine Lake Pleasant Creek Prairie Rose Preparation Canyon Red Haw Rice Lake Rock Creek Springbrook Stone Templar Trapper's Bay Twin Lakes Union Grove Viking Lake Volga River Walnut Woods Wapsipinicon Waubonsie Wildcat Den Wilson Island

State Forests	Backbone Barkley Gifford Holst Loess Hills Pilot Mound Shimek Stephens White Pine Hollow Yellow River

State Preserves	A.F. Miller Ames High Prairie Anderson Prairie Behrens Pond and Woodlands Berry Woods Bird Hill Bixby Bluffton Fir Stand Brush Creek Canyon Brushy Creek Cameron Woods Casey's Paha Catfish Creek Cayler Prairie Cedar Bluffs Cedar Hills Sand Prairie Cheever Lake Clay Prairie Claybanks Forest Cold Water Spring Crossman Prairie Decorah Ice Cave Dinesen Prairie Doolittle Prairie Fallen Rock Fish Farm Mounds Five Ridge Prairie Fleming Woods Fort Atkinson Freda Haffner Kettlehole Gitchie Manitou Hanging Bog Hardin City Woodland Hartley Fort Hayden Prairie Hoffman Prairie Indian Bluffs Primitive Area Indian Fish Trap Iowa's State Preserves System Kalsow Kish-Ke-Kosh Prairie Lamson Woods Liska-Stanek Prairie Little Maquoketa Malanaphy Springs Malchow Mounds Manikowski Prairie Mann Wilderness Area Marietta Sand Prairie Mericle Woods Merrill A. Stainbrook Merritt Forest Montauk Mossy Glen Mount Pisgah Cemetery Mount Talbot Nestor Stiles Prairie Ocheyedan Mound Old State Quarry Palisades-Downs Pecan Grove Pellett Woods Pilot Grove Pilot Knob Retz Woods Roberts Creek Rock Creek Island Rock Island Roggman Boreal Slopes Rolling Thunder Prairie Saint James Lutheran Church Savage Woods Searryl's Cave Sheeder Prairie Silver Lake Fen Silvers-Smith Woods Slinde Mounds Starr's Cave Steele Prairie Stinson Prairie Strasser Woods Sylvan Runkel Toolesboro Mounds Turin Loess Hills Turkey River Mounds White Pine Hollow Williams Prairie Wittrock Indian Village Woodland Mounds Woodman Hollow Woodthrush

County

State Parks (Leased)	Bobwhite Cold Springs Crystal Lake Eagle Lake Echo Valley Frank A. Gotch Heery Woods Lake Cornelia Lake Icaria Kearny Margo Frankel Mill Creek Oak Grove Oakland Mills Pammel Sharon Bluffs Spring Lake Swan Lake Three Mile Lake

Iowa Department of Natural Resources

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 1/7/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.