Pisgah National Forest
The Pisgah National Forest is a national forest ( national forest ) in the Appalachian Mountains in the state of North Carolina in the southeastern United States . The forest is managed by the United States Forest Service , which is under the Department of Agriculture . The administration of the Pisgah National Forest is organized from Asheville in cooperation with the other three national forests in North Carolina, the Croatan , the Nantahala and the Uwharrie National Forest . Local rangers are stationed in Pisgah Forest , Burnsville and Nebo .
geography
The Pisgah National Forest covers an area of 2064 square kilometers and is entirely within the boundaries of North Carolina. The site is located in the southern Appalachian Mountains, partly in the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Great Balsam Mountains, and reaches heights of up to 1,829 meters above sea level. The highest mountain east of the Mississippi River , Mount Mitchell is located in neighboring Mount Mitchell State Park , just outside the national forest. The forest also includes areas around the city of Asheville, as well as the community of Brevard and parts of the French Broad River valley. The Pisgah National Forest is in Transylvania , McDowell , Haywood , Madison , Caldwell , Burke , Yancey , Buncombe , Avery , Mitchell , Henderson, and Watauga counties .
The leisure and recreational opportunities offered include hiking and trekking , and the area is also used for hunting, logging and as an arboretum in North Carolina .
Primary forest
About 190 square kilometers of the forest area consists of primary forest , of which about 40 square kilometers are in the Linville Gorge .
administration
The Pisgah National Forest is divided into four ranger districts: Grandfather, Toecane, French Broad, and Pisgah. The Grandfather and Toecane counties are in the northern mountainous regions of the state, which include Linville Gorge Wilderness , Wilson Creek , the Toe and Cane Rivers watersheds, Roan Mountain , Mount Mitchell , Craggy Gardens, and the Big Ivy / Coleman Boundary area. The French Broad district extends from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in a northerly direction along the border with the neighboring state of Tennessee to Hot Springs . The Appalachian Trail , one of the longest long-distance hiking trails in the world , also runs through this part of the national forest .
Three major tributaries of the French Broad River, the Bent Creek, Mills River, and Davidson River lie in the Pisgah Ranger District, the one on the opposite side of the Blue Ridge Parkway along the Pisgah Ridge and Balsam Mountains south of Asheville. Three long-distance hiking trails run through this section of the forest: The Mountains-to-Sea Trail , the Shut-In Trail and the Art Loeb Trail . Also in this district are the Shining Rock and Middle Prong Wildernesses, two wilderness areas , the strictest class of nature reserves in the USA.
history
The Pisgah National Forest was established in 1916 as one of the first national forests in the eastern United States. Some of the first land purchases by the National Forest Service were made under the Weeks Act of 1911, a law that required the establishment of national forests that already existed in the west for the east of the country. Although the acquired territories were the first land purchased under the Weeks Act , another Georgia forest based on the Gennett Purchase received official recognition first. In March 1921 the Boone National Forest was assigned to the Pisgah National Forest, on July 10, 1936 most of the Unaka National Forest followed . In 1954, the administration of the Pisgah, Croatan and Nantahala National Forest, often referred to as the National Forests of North Carolina , was merged.
American forestry has its roots in part in the Pisgah National Forest. The first forestry school in the United States, Biltmore Forest School is located in the southern portion of the National Forests . It was in operation from the late 19th century until the early 20th century. It was opened and directed by George Washington Vanderbilt II , the builder of the Biltmore Estate in Asheville. The school and the Biltmore Estate, now on the Pisgah National Forest site, played an integral role in the creation of the US Forest Service.
Web links
- Pisgah National Forest
- Forest History Society Library and Archives: The Dawn of Private Forestry in America, Covering the Years 1895 to 1914 - Pictures of early forest history
Individual evidence
- ↑ Forest facts 2006 ( Memento of the original dated December 16, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , National Forest Service.
- ^ Mary Byrd Davis: Old Growth in the East: A Survey. North Carolina . January 23, 2008. Archived from the original on February 17, 2012. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 30, 2011.
- ^ Donald Edwards Davis: Where There Are Mountains: An Environmental History of the Southern Appalachians . The University of Georgia Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8203-2494-9 , pp. 172-173.
- ↑ The National Forests of the United States ( Memento of the original from January 18, 2009 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , The Forest History Society.
Coordinates: 35 ° 21 '36 " N , 82 ° 47' 34.8" W.