Happy 100 years to the Priest River Experimental Forest (PREF)! PREF, which is managed by the Research and Development Branch of the USDA Forest Service, celebrated its centennial in September 2011. It was established in northern Idaho to provide useful information that would improve forest management in the western part of District One at a time when US forestry was in its infancy. In 1911, there were only a handful of university studies on forest development in the United States and little was known about tree establishment and growth, the impact of fire, or how to sufficiently supply wood products for a growing nation.