A Gift to the Nation: From Ohio and Wayne National Forest – The 1987 Capitol Christmas Tree

by Dan B. Kincaid

In 1987 one of the smallest National Forests in the country, located in the midst of the hardwood forests of southeastern Ohio, was selected to provide the Christmas tree, a Norway spruce, for our nation’s Capitol in Washington, D.C. This book details how the Wayne National Forest came to receive that honor and how a small, dedicated group of Forest Service employees, as well as local organizations, agencies, schools, businesses, and citizens rallied around the project to make it one of the most successful in the history of the program. By tying-in the event to the Bicentennial celebrations of the nationally significant Northwest Ordinance and the settlement of the historic City of Marietta, Ohio, the festivities garnered not only local, but state, regional, and national attention.