The logging of Michigan’s forests in the late 1800s supplied wood to Europe and states as far away as Wyoming, and helped establish communities across the Great Plains. The value of Michigan’s sawed lumber was estimated in 1929 to be $3 billion, more than twice the value of all the gold produced in California to that time. But the industry was ruinous. The failure to log selectively and to replant trees created vast stump fields across northern Michigan. In the first decade of the 1900s, Michigan established forest reserves and began the job of renewing the forests under public ownership.