The forest recreation area was actually an old-growth forest with no permanent settlements until Japanese colonization, when the colonial government hired over a thousand Japanese and a thousand Taiwanese to work in logging and on the railroad there as they sought to develop the area.
而森林遊樂區原本是整片原始林，完全沒有居民定居在此，當年日本總督府為開發林業，招募了上千名日本人，又在全台各地徵召了上千名台籍伐木及鐵道工人。