Cradle of Forestry

Institutions, Land

In the early 20th century, the Appalachian forest was subjected to devastating large-scale commercial exploitation for the first time. At the same time, pioneering conservationists were devising reforms for forest management.  In 1889, George Vanderbilt hired a young...
Biltmore Estate

Biltmore Estate

Culture, People

George Washington Vanderbilt II was born into money. His grandfather, Cornelius Vanderbilt, amassed a huge railroad and shipping empire. His father, William Henry Vanderbilt, financed the founding of New York’s Metropolitan Opera and Vanderbilt University. . .

George W. Vanderbilt

George W. Vanderbilt

People

George W. Vanderbilt, heir of the vast Vanderbilt family fortune, first visited the Asheville area as a young man in 1888. He fell in love with the mountains and began construction of a country home, which he called Biltmore. He also bought 125,000 acres of forest...
Pisgah National Forest

Pisgah National Forest

Land

Pisgah National Forest, founded in 1916, covers much of North Carolina’s northwestern mountains. Pisgah was the first national forest created from purchased land rather than from the public domain. Many of its half-million acres were purchased from the widow of the Biltmore Estate’s creator, George W. Vanderbilt.