MILFORD, Pa. - Driving north on leafy Route 209 along a section of the Delaware River that dips into the 70,000-acre Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, it's easy to see why Gifford Pinchot was passionate about conservation.

The two-time Pennsylvania governor, who is credited with starting the U.S. Forest Service in 1905, spent most of his life surrounded by these woods, fly-fishing on the river and trekking along the steep bluffs of Pennsylvania bluestone that surround this Pike County seat.

Although he died here in 1946 at age 81, Pinchot still looms large over this town, as much a presence as the Knob, a 400-foot bluff that rises above Broad Street, the main thoroughfare.

And his reputation is getting a boost these days, by Ken Burns' new series, The National Parks: America's Best Idea, and Timothy Egan's book, The Big Burn, due out tomorrow, detailing the country's largest forest fire.

Pinchot's vision of preserved green space and sustainable forestry began at his family home here - just about at the intersection of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. Thanks in large part to Pinchot's stewardship, half of Pike County is state park or federal land, with an additional 30 percent set aside for hunting and camping.

These great swaths of green, punctuated by a network of dramatic waterfalls, make up some of the prettiest country in the state. And Pinchot made it his business to keep it that way.

"I think Gifford Pinchot is one of the most underappreciated figures in American history," says Sean Strub, an Iowa native-turned-New Yorker who adopted Milford as a weekend retreat in 1996 and co-owns the tony Hotel Fauchere.

"Gifford really introduced the concept of sustainable harvesting of woodlands as a way to protect our country's resources," Strub says. "That was a very new and controversial idea back then."

At the same time that John Muir was inspiring Teddy Roosevelt to create the National Park system, Pinchot was awarded oversight of 190 million acres of America's woodland resources, holding to his creed of accomplishing "the greatest good for the greatest number over the longest time."

To get a feel for just how revolutionary Pinchot was in his day, it's necessary to visit Grey Towers, the Pinchot family residence designed by Richard Morris Hunt and a family haven from 1886 to 1963.

Approached through towering black locust trees, the estate stands out against a wooded hillside. But it wasn't always so. The family, which moved to Milford from France in 1818, made a good part of its fortune felling the trees on these hills and floating the timber downriver to Trenton and Philadelphia - exactly the kind of destructive lumbering that Pinchot would devote his career to stopping. Early pictures of the 20,000-square-foot mansion show a setting bereft of trees.

Pinchot's father, James, encouraged him to study forestry, which he did in Nancy, France, after graduating from Yale University. James Pinchot later endowed a two-year graduate program of forestry at Yale and designated a portion of Grey Towers' 1,600 acres as a summer-school site and for fieldwork, an arrangement that continued for nearly 26 years.

Photos of students surveying the land, with the house in the background, are just a few of the artifacts at Grey Towers, which was donated to the U.S. Forest Service in 1963 in a ceremony led by President John F. Kennedy months before his assassination.

More than 25,000 visitors tour Grey Towers annually, many of them led by tour guide and local son Paul Cuccolo. He points out the Renaissance artwork and furnishings in the grand entrance hall, a rifle carried by Teddy Roosevelt up San Juan Hill, and books in the expansive library that reveal Pinchot's love for nature, fishing, and wildlife.

Outside, a Roman-style water table under a wisteria-covered pergola was the site of many a lively discussion. Guests floated bowls of food to each other - usually a successful novelty, except for the time Pinchot tried to carve a Thanksgiving turkey and it wound up in the drink.

"After that, the food was always served carved and ready to eat," says Cuccolo, who is writing a book about the Pinchot family.

"If anybody's had a bad thing to say about Giff, I've never heard it," Cuccolo says. "He brought Pennsylvania out of the Depression faster than any other state, built 20,000 miles of roads, and made this the greenest county in Pennsylvania."

The Pinchot Greenway, a two-mile walking path, connects Grey Towers to the McDade Trail and Milford Beach along the Delaware - just two of the area's popular green spots.

In warm weather, many visitors rent kayaks or inner tubes for a float along the Delaware, where they might spot great blue herons and waterfowl. Come winter, the Upper Delaware River watershed provides the largest wintering habitat for bald eagles in the Northeast.

Year round, Raymondskill Falls, just south of town, has been attracting tourists since the Civil War, when Milford became a popular destination for rich folk eager to leave the polluted city behind. It is the tallest waterfall in the state - only four feet shorter than Niagara Falls - and you can reach it by a short gravel path from the parking area.