In the northern reaches of Minnesota, within the sprawling Chippewa National Forest, lies a rare remnant of America’s ecological past—a 144 acres patch of forest with old-growth pines, known as the Lost Forty. This untouched pocket of towering red and white pines survived into the modern era not through deliberate conservation, but through a surveying error that left the land hidden from loggers for decades.
Credit: Lorie Shaull
The story begins in 1882, when government surveyors working in the region miscalculated the location of a nearby lake. Believing that Coddington Lake extended farther east than it actually did, they mapped a forty-acre section as being underwater. Since no logging company had any interest in harvesting trees from the bottom of a lake, the area was effectively overlooked.
For the next half-century, while millions of acres of Minnesota’s virgin pine were felled and floated downriver, the Lost Forty stood quietly untouched. The pines grew older, broader, and taller. Many of the trees that survive today are over 300 years old, with some exceeding 120 feet in height.
Site of the Lost Forty. Credit: Martha Decker
Minnesota was once cloaked in vast forests of red and white pine, but the logging boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries left very little of this ancient woodland intact. Today, less than 2% of the state’s original old-growth pine forest remains. The Lost Forty is one of the finest and most accessible examples.
Walking through the area, one immediately senses the difference. The forest floor is open and quiet, with scattered ferns and towering trunks rising like pillars. Many trees bear the massive girth characteristic of centuries-old growth, some measuring three feet in diameter. The canopy filters sunlight in narrow, golden shafts. Birds nest high above in cavities that only form in ancient timber.
Old-growth white (near left) and red (farther right) pines near each other along the path in the Lost Forty forest. Credit: Martha Decker
A USFS employee poses for a photo during a visit of the The Lost Forty old growth timber stand in 2024. Credit: US Forest Service
Why is the area called Lost Forty?
In the U.S. Public Land Survey System, land is divided into square 40-acre parcels (quarter-quarter sections). The specific parcel that the 1882 survey mistakenly mapped as underwater was exactly 40 acres.
However, when the area was examined in the 20th century, forest researchers realized that the surrounding land had also escaped logging. Altogether, roughly 144 acres of old-growth red and white pine survived. Even though the protected area today is larger, the historical term “Lost Forty” stuck.
Credit: Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
When later surveyors corrected the boundaries in the 20th century, the mistake became evident. By then, however, the logging boom had waned, and the land passed into federal stewardship.
The Forest Service recognized the site as ecologically significant, eventually designating it as part of the Chippewa National Forest and preserving it for public enjoyment and scientific study. Today, interpretive signs at the site recount the surveying error and the region’s logging history, standing as reminders of how chance can shape landscapes.
References:
# Lost 40. U.S. Department of Agriculture
# Lost forty. U.S. Department of Agriculture
# This 1882 surveying error saved a patch of forest from logging. National Geographic
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