Beginning in the late 1850s, Mormon settlers in Cache Valley, Utah, overused the natural resources found on the Bear River Range. By the turn of the 20th century, unregulated logging and grazing resulted in serious watershed decline. Logan River (which originates in the Bear River Range and is the largest supplier of water to Cache Valley) became polluted and ran low. In response to water shortages, in February 1902, a small group of conservation-minded intellectuals and businessmen in Cache Valley convinced local farmers and stockmen to petition the federal government to set aside the Bear River Range as a forest reserve. During July 1902, government grazing officer Albert F. Potter surveyed the range, writing much of what he saw in his diary. In the end, Potter recommended that the range be protected. On May 29, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt officially created the Logan Forest Reserve. The original Logan Forest Reserve totaled 182,080 acres and consisted of roughly nine townships including what is today the Logan Ranger District. The reserve stretched from Logan Canyon east to Bear Lake Valley and from Blacksmith Fork Canyon north to Richmond, Utah.

In 1906, the Logan Forest Reserve was renamed Bear River Forest Reserve and was expanded to include forested lands near Marsh Creek and Malad, Idaho. In 1907, the reserve was temporarily renamed Portneuf Forest Reserve. On July 1, 1908, forested lands in Northern Utah and Southern Idaho were consolidated to create the Cache National Forest. In 1973, the Cache National Forest was merged with the Wasatch National Forest to form the Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Then, in August 2007, the Uinta National Forest in eastern Utah was merged with the Wasatch-Cache to create the current Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Totaling 2,169,596 acres, this national forest (of which the original Logan Forest Reserve was a part) covers large sections of northern and north-central Utah, and southwestern Wyoming.