once upon a time what is now called the dolly sods was by accounts one of the finest red spruce forests in eastern north america. giant trees 8-10 ft. in diameter grew from a deep layer of peaty soil covered virtually everywhere by thick layers of moss and lichens. this great forest was likely in its main constituents at least 10,000 years old when it met its doom at the hands of the robber barons around the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries. 'not a stick left standing' was the logging companies common boast, and indeed there was nothing much left in the red creek drainages but a few patches of young spruce amidst vast clearcuts and huge piles of slash. and then eventually the deep rich soil built up over the millenia became dessicated and caught fire in a dry autumn and burnt down to bare rock and mineral soil. then parts of the area were even used by the army for artillery ranges around and after world war II.
in time though the sods finally came under some degree of protection from the monongahela national forest, and most of it is today preserved as the dolly sods national wilderness. and in spite of its grim recent history it is now a hauntingly lovely place, with vast upland grasslands and rocky promontories, and the red spruce have returned in dark convocations here and there along with extensive groves of northern hardwoods.
in centuries to come the dolly sods may well become a great forest land again, although it will certainly never be what it once was, and the windswept grasses will be only an ephemeral memory of a broken land that healed in beauty...