Donaldson to present 'Womble's Penny Pine Forest'

The next meeting of the Ouachita Chapter of the Arkansas Archeological Society will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Fordyce Room of National Park Medical Center, 1910 Malvern Road.

This month's program will feature Laura Donaldson of the Ouachita National Forest, who will present "Womble's Penny Pine Forest."

Programs are free and open to the public. Email [email protected] or call Mary Beth Trubitt at 870-230-5510 for more information.

Donaldson is the zone archaeologist for the Caddo and Womble Ranger Districts on the Ouachita National Forest. Prior to moving to Arkansas, she worked for the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, and in private CRM in Oregon, Washington, California, Utah and Nevada.

The "Penny Pine" initiative was a national program started by the Forest Service in the 1930s intended to promote reforestation on national forest lands, a news release said. "Decades of over-harvesting, devastating fires, and little replanting had left many national forest lands in poor condition. The Forest Service started this program of replanting and growing pines in national nurseries, offering pine seedlings for a penny a piece, hence the phrase 'Penny Pine,'" the release said.

In Arkansas, the Daughters of the American Revolution spearheaded the effort of planting Penny Forests in the state, including one on the Womble District of the Ouachita National Forest that is still standing. This Penny Forest was recently recorded as a modified cultural landscape, and is a good representation of the challenges faced by agencies and historic preservation staff when trying to manage a living resource as a cultural resource.