wildfires and overgrazing, exacerbated by the ecological stresses of the elevation, have prevented quick regeneration of the forest which has taken decades to recover. The Monongahela National Forest was created in 1915, largely motivated by a desire to mitigate the sort of wholesale destruction that had swept over the Sods. In 1916 most of Dolly Sods was purchased by the federal government for the MNF from the Bridges Estate. Mineral rights remained in private ownership. The Laneville mill closed in 1920 after almost all the timber had been cut and the local population dwindled. The last timber was felled in the Dolly Sods area in 1924. A particularly ferocious fire raged in late July 1930 in the northernmost Red Creek and southernmost Stony River watersheds (along the Grant/Tucker County line). This conflagration – known as the Dobbin Slashings Fire – consumed and killed many trees left alone as non-commercial by the loggers. An eerie landscape persisted here for years, with the stumps of these trees perched high upon jumbles of boulders. In the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps made some modest attempts to remediate the damage to Dolly Sods by re-planting stands of red spruce there. Army use and cleanup In 1943 and '44, as part of the West Virginia Maneuver Area, the U.S. Army used the area as a practice artillery and mortar range and maneuver area before troops were sent to Europe to fight in World War II; with Cabin Mountain and Blackbird Knob serving as designated targets. In 1997, a work crew extensively surveyed trail locations and known campsites for shells. Workers made 32,594 excavations along the trails and discovered and detonated 14 live mortar shells, most along the Fisher Spring Run Trail. All were exploded on site. Two others were inert. They also found numerous railroad spikes, iron tools and horseshoes left over from logging days. Off-trail searches proved to be impossible, so some of the artillery and mortar shells (60 mm and 81 mm rounds) shot into the area likely still remain there. (See this link for a photo of two shells found in July 2006.) Threat and recovery Dolly Sods became popular with recreationalists and conservationists in the mid-1960s at which time political agitation began to set it aside as a preserve. Local farmers also ceased allowing their livestock to graze here at this time. Nevertheless, the area was threatened by at least four