First State Game Lands
Jones Township, Elk County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
A tract of 6288 acres lying north and east of here was the first purchase of State Game Lands by the Pennsylvania Game Commission. The purchase was made in 1920 with funds obtained from hunting license fees.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In 1920, the Pennsylvania Game Commission used money raised entirely from hunting-license fees to buy 6,288 acres of Elk County forest — the first tract in what would become the state's vast State Game Lands system. The purchase reflected a Progressive-Era conviction that wildlife and wild country were public resources worth conserving for everyone, and that hunters themselves should foot the bill. From this single Elk County parcel grew a statewide network now covering well over a million acres.
Why it matters
It marks the birth of one of America's largest state wildlife-conservation systems and a model, still copied today, of funding public land through the sportsmen who use it.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By 1920, the wild forests of Pennsylvania had already lived through a hard century. Logging, land-clearing, and unregulated hunting had thinned game and stripped woodlands across much of the state, and Americans were beginning to reckon with what unchecked exploitation had cost.
This was the Progressive Era, a time when reformers argued that the country's natural resources — its forests, waters, and wildlife — were not simply there for the taking but were public goods that deserved active stewardship. Conservation moved from a fringe idea to a mainstream cause.
Elk County, in the forested plateau country of north-central Pennsylvania, was exactly the kind of place where that new thinking could take physical form. Here, on a large tract of woodland, the abstract idea that the public should own and protect wild land became a concrete purchase of ground.
People & events
The pivotal event is specific and, at the time, quietly revolutionary: in 1920 the Pennsylvania Game Commission bought a tract of 6,288 acres lying north and east of this spot — the first purchase of what would become the State Game Lands.
What makes it remarkable is where the money came from. The Commission used funds raised entirely from hunting-license fees. The people who hunted the woods were, in effect, buying and protecting the very habitat that sustained the game they pursued.
That single decision set a pattern. One tract became a template: identify wild country worth conserving, pay for it with dollars drawn from the sportsmen who used it, and hold it in public hands. From this Elk County beginning grew a system that would spread across the state.
Its place in the American story
This 6,288-acre purchase marks the birth of one of the largest state wildlife-conservation systems in America. What started here eventually grew into a statewide network of public game lands covering well over a million acres.
Just as important as the acreage is the idea behind the funding. The principle that hunters themselves should pay to conserve wildlife habitat — that those who use a resource should help sustain it — became a cornerstone of American conservation, echoed in later programs at the national level.
So this modest forest tract carries an outsized legacy. It represents the moment a Progressive-Era conviction — that wild country and wildlife belong to everyone and are worth conserving for future generations — was put into practice with real land and real dollars, in a model still copied today.
If you visit
Come for the forest itself. This is the deep, rolling woodland of Elk County — the kind of quiet, tree-covered country that makes it easy to understand why anyone would want to protect it. The tract that started it all lies to the north and east, so let the marker point your gaze toward the woods, not away from them.
As you look, hold one idea in your mind: nearly everything that became the State Game Lands system traces back to this first parcel, paid for by hunting-license fees. You're standing at the seed of something that now spans the state.
It fits naturally into a road trip through Pennsylvania's northern forests — big-sky ridgelines, working woodlands, and some of the best wildlife country in the East. Pause here first, and every stretch of public forest you pass afterward carries a little more meaning.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related events
- · First purchase of Pennsylvania State Game Lands, 1920
Themes & tags
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