Theodore Lukens

Theodore Parker Lukens (October 6, 1848 – July 1, 1918) was an American conservationist, real estate investor, civic leader, and forester who believed that burned over mountains could again be covered in timber which would protect watersheds. Lukens collected pine cones and seeds of different types and conducted experimental plantings on the mountain slopes above Pasadena, California. His perseverance earned him the name "Father of Forestry."

Lukens established Henninger Flats tree nursery, which provided seed stock for an estimated 70,000 trees. He worked for the United States Forest Service and was acting supervisor of the San Gabriel Timberland Reserve and the San Bernardino Forest Reserve in 1906.

Lukens served two terms as mayor of Pasadena and was active in municipal and civic affairs of early-day Pasadena. Prior to becoming mayor, Lukens was involved in an anti-Chinese movement that culminated in racist riots against Chinese American residents and businesses in what is now Old Town Pasadena and an official ordinance barring anyone of Chinese ancestry from the city. Lukens remained prominent in civic and conservation issues until his death in 1918.

Lukens was interested in growing plants, even before moving out to Southern California from Illinois, where he had owned and operated a nursery in Whiteside County, Illinois. By 1882 the Lukens family established a home in Pasadena. Lukens already knew of the hardwoods in his native Midwest but now the former nurseryman sought to learn about the native and non-native trees of Southern California. Among them: live oak, pepper, camphor, umbrella, eucalyptus and various citrus trees.

Lukens undertook several expeditions to study the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains from 1897 to 1899. He learned the "paradise" of Southern California had some serious problems as well. The increased use and misuse of resources by miners, loggers and livestock owners had devastated the lands. Wildfires caused the worst damage due to the Mediterranean climate of long, hot and dry summers which turned fires into infernos, leaving behind burned and bare hillsides, resulting in erosion and flooding during the rainy season.

Among the different species of trees Lukens studied, the knobcone pine was the best choice he believed, for its fire-resistant properties. The cones, which are embedded in the tree, only open and release seeds after a wildfire. He learned how to open the cones by boiling them and the method of watering and care that produced seedlings. The cone is sealed by a glaze-like resin and only opens after melting from heat of at least 200 °F (93 °C). The knobcone is well suited for reforestation as it grows on rocky hillsides in serpentine or granitic soil. Botanist Willis Linn Jepson observed that the knobcone grows on sites that are the "most hopelessly inhospitable in the California mountains".

Lukens' belief in the solution of tree planting was shown by lectures he gave, as well as writings and photographs he prepared. His proposals gained support. In 1899, William Kerckhoff, president of the Forest and Water Association, paid for $50 worth of seed to give University of Southern California forestry students for planting, and in a two-week period, more than 60,000 seeds were sown by the young foresters. The next year Lukens, with support by the Forest and Water Association, planted several thousand knobcone and ponderosa pine seeds in the San Gabriel mountains above Altadena, California. Lukens' reported to the association that "ridges and crowns of hills were selected, that when the trees came into fruiting the seed would be cast in different directions down steep slopes." On a wider scale, the conservation movement was gaining momentum throughout California. In 1899, 24 organizations met in San Francisco and formed The California Society for Conserving Water and Protecting Forests. Another group formed was The Forest and Water Society of Southern California, composed of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Southern California Academy of Science.

In 1903, Lukens expanded the tree-planting enterprise with a lease on the Henninger property for the US Forest Service, of which he was an employee. Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot approved the lease in October 1903 for the clearing of 5 acres (20,000 m²). Reforestation became official policy. Improvements included a 48' by 60' lath house and rabbit-proof fence. The first firebreak constructed in the San Gabriel Reserve was around Henninger Flats to protect the site. Lukens worked to make Henninger Flats a high elevation tree nursery that would produce seedlings for reforestation and watershed restoration efforts.
Lukens and his assistants grew more than 60,000 experimental tree seedlings at the nursery. Most of the 1,000 trees that were planted in the San Gabriel and San Bernardino reserves for the Forest Service were grown at the nursery during 1903-1907. Locally, the nursery provided 17,000 seedlings for Los Angeles' Griffith Park, the second-largest city park in California. The nursery received many orders for seed and seedlings from foresters worldwide, including Chile and Australia. Galen Clark, former Guardian of the Yosemite Grant, approved massive tree plantings, and declared this a "grand enterprise..." in a 1904 letter to Lukens.