More than 1,800 high-resolution images of U.S. Forest Service history in the region are now available online for public viewing.

Photos include images of early rangers and foresters such as Carl Schenck and Gifford Pinchot. Additionally, there are photos of Forest Service sites in North Carolina such as fire lookouts and guard stations, early forest visitors camping, hiking and horseback riding, as well as early construction by the Civilian Conservation Corps. The earliest photos date back to the Biltmore Forest School of the 1890s.

Through a cost-share project with the UNC-Asheville’s Ramsey Library, the forest service’s historic photos were scanned and are now available on a new website.

UNCA is uploading another 3,000 historic images to the new website from the archives of Forest Service Southern Research Station. The photos will be available for viewing in the near future. This combined collection will provide researchers and the public access to nearly 5,000 images, making it one of the country’s largest online Forest Service image databases. The full project should be completed by January 2012.

To view the photos, go to: http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/photo/nfnc/default_nfnc.htm.