Yellow River State Forest
| Yellow River State Forest | |
| Iowa State Park | |
| Named for: Yellow River | |
| Country | United States |
|---|---|
| State | Iowa |
| Counties | Allamakee |
| Coordinates | 43°9′18″N 91°14′36″W / 43.15500°N 91.24333°WCoordinates: 43°9′18″N 91°14′36″W / 43.15500°N 91.24333°W |
| Founded | 1933 |
| Management | Iowa Department of Natural Resources |
| Nearest city | Harpers Ferry, Iowa |
 Location of Yellow River State Forest in Iowa
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| Website: Yellow River State Forest | |
Yellow River State Forest, (YRSF), is mostly forested land owned by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. It is located in the southeastern corner of Allamakee County, the most northeasterly of Iowa's counties. It is adjacent to the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge and is just north of Effigy Mounds National Monument in the bluff region of the Upper Mississippi River.
The forest was established in 1933 by the Civilian Conservation Corps with the purchase of 1500 acres of land at the mouth of the Yellow River. It now has six units: Luster Heights, Paint Creek North, Paint Creek South, Paint Rock, Waukon Junction and Yellow River, collectively aggregating 8,503 acres (3,441 ha). The original 1,500 acres (610 ha) were transferred to the National Park Service in 1945, due to the presence of many Native American effigy mounds, and is now known as Effigy Mounds National Monument. The majority of YRSF is now in the catchment of Paint Creek. Some of the forest is reclaimed farmland, but much of it was never farmed because of the steepness of the terrain.
The State and the various Federal agencies actively cooperate in the management of the lands under their care, particularly in the use of fire to maintain goat prairies, which are found "on steep, thin soils with a south-southwest exposure. The best examples occur in northeast Iowa's Paleozoic Plateau, but similar prairie can be found in other parts of the state."
The forest is located in the Driftless Area of Iowa, a region that was not glaciated during the last ice age. The geology of the region shows ancient Silurian period formations. The Yellow River and Paint Creek have rugged, steep walled canyons, showing millennia of erosion, where glacial action would have otherwise smoothed out the features.
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