Ralph E. Brock

Ralph Elwood Brock (February 15, 1881 – December 9, 1959) was an American forester and protégé of Joseph Trimble Rothrock. Graduating from the Pennsylvania State Forest Academy in 1906, he worked as the Michaux State Forest nursery superintendent from 1906 to 1911. In 2003, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission commemorated him with a state historical marker at the Penn State Mont Alto campus. Brock was the first academically trained African American forester in the United States. Brock briefly studied botany at the University of Pennsylvania and in 1904 published a short paper in Forest Leaves, the official organ of the Pennsylvania Forestry Association. In 1901, Rothrock arranged for Brock to accompany forester George H. Wirt as a student assistant to establish the Mont Alto State Forest Reserve (now Michaux State Forest).

In 1903, Brock enrolled in the Pennsylvania State Forest Academy (the future Penn State Mont Alto), one of only three forestry schools in the United States at the time. He ranked second in the academy's inaugural graduating class of 1906. Of his six-man cohort, Brock was the only African American, making him the first academically trained forester in Pennsylvania and in the United States.

Brock left state service after three years and six months to start his own business managing landscaping, gardens, and orchards. Someone who graduated from the academy in 1909 said that “Brock had a hard time of it for none of the boys could quite content himself being ordered around by a darky, regardless of his ability.” In addition to the racism he faced, Brock and his wife, accustomed to bustling towns and rolling farmland, may have struggled with isolation. On rainy days, he reportedly sat for hours staring out of the window and was heard to mutter, "Trees, trees, nothing but trees!" On Arbor Day in 2001, the City of Pottsville planted a tree in his honor at the historic Charles Baber Cemetery. In 2003, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission commemorated his accomplishments with a historic marker at the entrance to the Penn State Mont Alto campus. In the mid-2000s, the State Museum of Pennsylvania installed an exhibit in the museum's Ecology Hall showcasing Brock's career at Mont Alto.