 Boise National Forest was created on July 1 , 1908 from part of Sawtooth National Forest , and originally covered 1 @,@ 147 @,@ 360 acres ( 4 @,@ <unk> @.@ 2 km2 ) . The U.S. President was given the authority to establish forest reserves administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior by the Forest Reserve Act of 1891 . With the passage of the Transfer Act of 1905 , forest reserves were transferred to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the newly created U.S. Forest Service . Present @-@ day Boise National Forest was first protected as part of two forest reserves by <unk> issued by President Theodore Roosevelt : Sawtooth Forest Reserve ( created on May 29 , 1905 and expanded on November 6 , 1906 ) and Payette Forest Reserve ( created on June 3 , 1905 ) . After forest reserves were renamed national forests in 1908 , Boise National Forest was split from Sawtooth National Forest into an independent national forest . On April 1 , 1944 the entirety of what was then Payette National Forest was transferred to Boise National Forest , and simultaneously <unk> and Idaho national forests were combined to reestablish the present @-@ day Payette National Forest , which is to the north of Boise National Forest . In 1933 the Boise Basin Experimental Forest was created on 8 @,@ 740 acres ( 35 @.@ 4 km2 ) of the forest near Idaho City to study the management of ponderosa pine . The Lucky Peak Nursery was established in 1959 to produce trees for planting on burned or logged lands on the national forests of the <unk> region . 
