Address by Steven W. Koehn, Maryland State Can you imagine
Maryland without a state forest or state park? Well, a little
less than one hundred years ago, in 1905, there was such a time.
John and Robert Garrett made a generous donation of 1,917 acres
of forest land in Garrett County to the State of Maryland. The
Garrett brother’s original donation consisted of 3 parcels:
Records show that the Garrett deed was prepared on January
30,1907 and later recorded by Fred. W. Besley on April 10th,
1907 at 8 AM, "For the purposes mentioned in Sec. 3 Chap.294 of
Acts of MD 1906" – what we call today the Forest Conservation
Act of 1906. (Note: Governor Edwin Warfield signed it into law
on April 5, 1906. During the preliminary discussions with the
State, the Garrett brothers imposed several conditions before
they deeded over the land to the State. Some of these conditions
were written into law in the Forestry Conservation Act of 1906.
The law in essence declared war on the Age of Forest
exploitation. The law made it clear