Townsend quickly profited from the forests of the Little River bottomlands. In 1916, he reported that Little River Lumber's consistently high rate of planks per acre showed no sign of decline. A single giant chestnut tree in the Smokies could yield 18,000 planks of lumber. Townsend's success led to a rapid expansion of logging operations throughout the Smokies. By the time the park was formed in the 1930s, nearly two-thirds of area forests had been cut down, and park managers have worked to restore the forests.