The area now known as the Caribbean National Forest was originally home to the Taino aborigines, who considered the Luquillo Mountain Range sacred. Petroglyphs left by this civilization can still be found in some parts of these mountains.

In 1876, King Alfonso XII of Spain designated about 11,000 acres of Puerto Rico to be protected forest. Though his goal was to prevent enemies from using the wood for warships, this area became the oldest forest reserve in the Western Hemisphere. Today, the protected region is more than twice its original area (28,000 acres) and is home to 75% of the island’s virgin forest.

In 1898, the Spanish-American War broke out. When Spain lost the war, it was forced to cede the colony of Puerto Rico, along with Cuba, the Philippines and Guam, to the United States. The island, with its large protected tract of woodland, came under American jurisdiction. In 1903, president Theodore Roosevelt, a dedicated conservationist, ensured the continued preservation of the Puerto Rican forest by declaring it the Luquillo Forest Reserve, the only rainforest in the United States’ National Forest System and the only Puerto Rican forest in the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service. It is also the rainiest of the national forests (with 120 inches of precipitation or more every year).