Born in 1887, Kenneth Dupee Swan, more commonly known as K.D. Swann, introduced Americans to public lands in the West. The U.S. Forest Service hired Swan in 1911 as a forest assistant in Missoula, Montana. With his interest in forest management and ability for storytelling through photography, Swan captured the grand scale and splendor of the National Forest System as no one had before.
Below are just a few of the 300,000 images he captured during his 36 years with the Forest Service. To learn more about his role and see more images, check out “From Balopticons to iPhones: Picturing and Pitching National Forests” in the Winter/Spring 2015 issues of Your National Forests magazine .
