At the turn of the twentieth century the land where the forest is now located, along with the majority of Minnesota, was logged and opened to homesteading, however the sandy soil make the area unsuitable for agriculture. Many homesteads were abandoned and returned to the county up until the end of the Great Depression, when in 1939 the state purchased land for the General Andrews State Forest Nursery, a tree nursery. Four years later the land the nursery and the surrounding land were incorporated as a state forest.
