National Grasslands and Land Utilization Projects — USDA Forest Service
The Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act, signed into law on July 22, 1937, was one of the New Deal's major responses to the Dust Bowl crisis. Title III of the act authorized the federal government to acquire "submarginal" farmland—land that could not sustain productive agriculture—and repurpose it for conservation, recreation, and managed grazing.
Through the Land Utilization Program, the government ultimately acquired approximately 11.3 million acres across the Great Plains and elsewhere. These lands were initially managed by the Soil Conservation Service, then transferred between several agencies before roughly 5.5 million acres came under the USDA Forest Service in 1954. In 1960, Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson designated 3.8 million of those acres as National Grasslands—the 20 units shown in green on this map.
The remaining Forest Service lands that were not designated as National Grasslands persist as Land Utilization Projects, shown in gold. Other Bankhead-Jones lands were transferred to the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and National Park Service and are not depicted here.
This map was created with the assistance of Claude Code.