page_title: Bighorn National Forest
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Bighorn National Forest / History
caption_attribution_description: English: U S Highway 14 is being reconstructed this summer. Be prepared for delays between Burgess Junction and Granite Pass. This photo shows construction of the Dayton-Kane road across the Bighorns in the 1920s.
context_page_description: The Bighorn National Forest is a U.S. National Forest located in northern Wyoming, United States and consists of over 1.1 million acres. Created as a US Forest Reserve in 1897, it is one of the oldest government-protected forest lands in the U.S. The forest is well east of the continental divide and extends from the Montana border for a distance of 80 miles along the spine of the Bighorn Mountains, an outlying mountain range separated from the rest of the Rocky Mountains by Bighorn Basin. Elevations range from 5,000 feet along the sagebrush and grass-covered lowlands at the foot of the mountains, to 13,189 feet on top of Cloud Peak, the highest point in the Bighorn Mountains. Around 99% of the land is above 1,500 metres. The forest is named after the Bighorn River, which is partially fed by streams found in the forest. Streams in the range are fed primarily by snowmelt and snowmelt mixed with driving rainfall.
  Within the forest is the Cloud Peak Wilderness area in which no motorized or mechanical equipment is allowed. The only access into the 189,000 acre wilderness is on foot or horseback.
context_section_description: The Bighorn National Forest was established as the Big Horn National Forest in 22 February 1897,  and encompasses 1,198,080 acres. On 1 July 1908 the name was changed to the Bighorn National Forest through an executive order. In September 1981 the national forest had 1,115,171 acres, with 1,107,670 of those acres being National Forest land.
caption: Men work on the Dayton-Kane road over the mountains in the 1920s
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