Western North Carolina Nantahala Forest Service 160A Zillicoa Street Asheville, NC 28802 828-257-4200 mailroom_r8_nantahala@fs.fed.us

Western North Carolina Pisgah Forest Service 1001 Pisgah Hwy Pisgah Forest, NC 28768 828-877-3265 mailroom_r8_pisgah@fs.fed.us

Nantahala Forest Service

The Nantahala National Forest was established in 1920 and took its name from the Cherokee word nondayeli, meaning "noonday sun." The Cherokee word is appropriate because of the number of steep gorges in the forest that only receive sunlight when the sun stands directly overhead.

Nantahala National Forest has more than 516,000 acres which span from Murphy to Waynesville and Cashiers to Fontana Village. It runs across the crest of mountains. It is North Carolina's largest national forest. Nantahala National Forest has hundreds of waterfalls, as well as river valleys and lakes in the lower lands. It ranges in elevation from a low of 1,200 feet on the Tusquitee River to a high of 5,800 feet at Lone Bald.

Pisgah Forest Service

As a result of the Weeks Act of 1911, Congress authorized the first purchase east of the Mississippi in 1912. This purchase was 8,100 acres on Curtis Creek and Pisgah National Forest was born. Pisgah takes its name from the mountain where Moses saw the Promise Land.

Over the years, additional land was acquired, the most significant was the nearly 87,000 acres that Edith Vanderbilt sold to the National Forest Service, following the death of her husband. Today Pisgah occupies 495,979 acres divided by the city of Asheville. One hundred miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway are surrounded by Pisgah National Forest.

Ranger districts within Pisgah:

French Broad Ranger District: 78,683 acres

Grandfather Ranger District: 186,735 acres

Pisgah Ranger District: 156,103 acres

Toecane Ranger District: 74,458 acres

Western North Carolina Forest Service

The most western part of the state, called the mountain region because of the Appalachian Mountains that run through the area, is characterized by vast hardwood forests composed of a variety of oaks, maples, beech, poplar and many others. The tallest peaks that reach over 5,000 feet are forested with red spruce and Fraser Fir. Hemlock forests are found along streams at lower elevations and in some moist ravines at higher elevations. On the very dry slopes of this region, short leaf pine and Virginia pine may be dominant. Prior to European settlement, North Carolina was mostly forested, and Amerindian tribes were dispersed throughout this forested landscape. Accounts by early European explorers traveling through North Carolina suggest that the natives used fire to modify the forest’s condition and that they relied upon subsistence agriculture for significant portions of their diet. However, disturbance from such Amerindian activities created localized or mostly temporary impacts. The primary forests of North Carolina were extensive and varied.

Longleaf pine forests dominated most upland soils in the southeastern part of the state, while flood plains and riverine swamps supported hardwood species. Mixed pine-hardwood forests covered most of northeast North Carolina. Hardwood forests dominated by oak, hickory and pine covered most of the piedmont landscape. Oak and chestnut dominated mountain slopes up to about 4,500 feet elevation with spruce and Fraser fir covering the highest elevations. Rich coves supported hemlock and yellow poplar. Dogwood, cedar, magnolia and many other species added to the diversity.

Earliest settlements along North Carolina’s coast initiated clearing for agriculture and development of a plantation culture and economy. Later, poor overland transportation routes funneled migration up rivers like the Cape Fear, and from the valleys settlers moved out across the inter stream divides. Eventually yeoman farmers rather than plantation owners dominated North Carolina’s agriculture-based economy, and forests were subjected to a variety of assaults.

In the 1700s the naval stores industry began to affect longleaf forests so that by mid-century North Carolina was the leading producer of tar and turpentine. North Carolina’s market dominance continued for more than a century until depletion of longleaf stands caused production to shift south by 1890. Further west, as settlers moved into the North Carolina piedmont beginning in the mid 1700s, lumbering and clearance for agriculture and pasturage increased rapidly. By the close of the Civil War in 1865, the state was perhaps only one-third forested, and most of the primary forest remaining was in the mountainous western portion of the state. Most of this mountain timber was cut in later decades of the 19th century and early decades of the 20th.

Amid growing national concern over the condition of forest lands in the United States, scientific forest management was first introduced on the Biltmore Estate and Pisgah Forest in 1892. George Vanderbilt’s acceptance of scientific management led him to hire Gifford Pinchot and then Carl Schenck to manage his forest lands. Schenck’s perceived need for trained foresters to carry out scientific management led to his creation of the Biltmore Forest School and a tradition that has had continuing impact on forests of North Carolina and the nation.

Regeneration of forests, through natural succession on abandoned agricultural land, with loblolly, short-leaf and Virginia pines and various oaks, resulted in a slow recovery of the state's eastern forest cover. Acquisition of cut over lands in the mountains led to formation of national forests, which have provided the basis for the high percentage of land remaining in forest in that section of North Carolina.

By the mid-20th century, North Carolina had more than 20 million acres of forest. That acreage has declined to about 19.3 million acres today, mostly due to residential and commercial development. Even with that decline, 60 percent of North Carolina remains forested with some of the most diverse forest types and the widest range of species occurring in North America.

*Prepared for the North Carolina Forest Legacy Program Assessment of Need by Gary B. Blank, Ph.D., North Carolina State University, Department of Forestry.

National Forest Service...Leave no Trace Policy