Fort McCoy will hold its annual Arbor Day celebration 9 a.m. April 29 west of Gate 5 on the cantonment area at the installation.
During the observance, Fort McCoy Garrison leadership and other installation personnel will help children from the post Child Development Center plant hundreds of tree seedlings, said Forester Charles Mentzel with the Forestry Office of the Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch.
“Everyone is invited to attend,” Mentzel said, citing that it’s the first time since 2019 that larger numbers of people can attend. “The post will also be receiving its 33rd Tree City USA award from the National Arbor Day Foundation (NADF) during the celebration.”
According to history.com, the origins of Arbor Day dates back to the early 1870s in Nebraska City, Neb. A journalist by the name of Julius Sterling Morton moved to the state with his wife, Caroline, in 1854. The couple purchased 160 acres in Nebraska City and planted a wide variety of trees and shrubs in what was a primarily a flat stretch of desolate plain.
Morton later became editor of the state’s first newspaper, Nebraska City News, which became a platform for Morton to spread his knowledge of trees and to stress their ecological importance within Nebraska.
On Jan. 7, 1872, Morton proposed a day that would encourage all Nebraskans to plant trees in their community. An agriculture board agreed, and Arbor Day was born. The first Arbor Day was held April 10, 1872.
The tradition spread quickly. Within 20 years, Arbor Day had reached a large swath of the nation and was celebrated in every state except for Delaware. It wasn’t until 1970, however, that Arbor Day became recognized nationwide, thanks to President Richard Nixon. This move was in line with other environmentally friendly actions taken by Nixon in the 1970s, including the passing of the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Protection Act, and more.
Mentzel said the Fort McCoy Arbor Day event is always coordinated by the installation Forestry program. In addition to the hundreds of trees planned for planting during the observance, thousands more will be planted on post.
“Planting thousands of new trees is an effort that is repeated every year on post,” Mentzel said. “Fort McCoy has more than 46,000 acres of forested land managed by the Forestry Office, and it’s important to maintain those forested areas.”
Mentzel said in 2022, the plan is to plant trees on 10 acres of Training Area B-05.
“We want that location to be trees as a screen to the Interstate and the training area complex,” Mentzel said. “We are planting other locations as well this year with Sparta (Wis.) students on April 26 and Wisconsin Challenge Academy cadets on April 30.”
Fort McCoy’s motto is to be the “Total Force Training Center.” Located in the heart of the upper Midwest, Fort McCoy is the only U.S. Army installation in Wisconsin.
The installation has provided support and facilities for the field and classroom training of more than 100,000 military personnel from all services nearly every year since 1984.
Learn more about Fort McCoy online at https://home.army.mil/mccoy, on the Defense Visual Information Distribution System at https://www.dvidshub.net/fmpao, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” and on Twitter by searching “usagmccoy.” Also try downloading the Digital Garrison app to your smartphone and set “Fort McCoy” or another installation as your preferred base.
(The Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch contributed to this article.)
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