Few people know of the amazing conservation story hidden in the far southeastern headwaters of the South River in a part of the U.S. National Forest (USNF) known today as the Big Levels Wildlife Management Area. One hundred years ago those lands were mostly in private hands although a small portion had already been purchased by the newly formed USNF.
The played out, timbered over, pillaged landscape was a far cry from the bountiful forest that we know today. From the east side of Stuarts Draft south to the Rockbridge line were iron, manganese, and kaolin mines, some still active. Most timber had been felled to make charcoal for the iron furnaces, giving rise to the Coal Road over which wagonloads of charcoal were transported.
The thin, rocky, acidic soil supported very little vegetation compromising water quality and providing poor wildlife habitat. By most accounts the last white-tailed deer in the area were killed in the 1890s and a 1930 wildlife census reported “five crows and a few ground squirrels.”
This did not sit well with a group of conservation minded area men who formed the Waynesboro Game and Fish Protective Association in 1931. Leading that group was Stuarts Draft’s Justus Cline, a University of Virginia geology professor. The group approached Virginia’s Commission of Game and Inland Fisheries, today known as the Department of Wildlife Resources, as well as the USNF with an idea to purchase a few thousand acres, fence it in, hire a game warden, make the land suitable for wildlife habitat, and stock the land with white-tailed deer, black bears, beaver, quail and turkey and the waters with fish.
The idea was a rousing success. Wildlife resources, such as seed plots and watering holes were developed and animals were brought in by railroad and released into the refuge. By 1935, Big Levels expanded to 35,000 acres (including what later became Sherando Lake and St. Mary’s Wilderness) and was formally dedicated in 1940.
The experiment was so successful that in 1951, a five-day controlled deer and bear hunt opened to 125 lucky hunters each day.
In 1977 the game refuge was redesignated as simply a wildlife management area, but its place in conservation history was secure. For 50 years, Big Levels was known as a testing ground for wildlife management ideas and regulations that were sometimes considered radical at the time but have become established practices across our nation’s public lands today.
Photo: A game biologist photographs a black bear cub at Big Levels in 1939. (U.S. Department of Agriculture photo)