Mount Pisgah: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Blue Ridge Parkway - Pisgah District, National Park Service

The Jaeger Company, Contractor; Pond and Company, Contractor

The Mount Pisgah Recreation Area is located between Mileposts 407 and 409 on the Blue Ridge Parkway, approximately twenty-two miles south of Asheville, North Carolina. The 147-acre site contains developed recreation areas and forested land in a natural state, crossed by a network of hiking trails both within the boundary and extending into the surrounding Pisgah National Forest. The Blue Ridge Parkway bisects the landscape and provides access, with two component landscapes located on either side of the roadway. The Mount Pisgah Recreation Area has several periods of significance. The earliest is 1897-1959, during which the Vanderbilt family owned a 472-acre tract of land that was later incorporated into the Mount Pisgah Recreation Area. The span of 1913-1953 marks the period of significance for the former Pisgah Forest Inn, of which two buildings and a road trace remain in the current landscape. The dominant period of significance, under which a majority of the development falls, is the Blue Ridge Parkway period of significance from 1956 to 1987. Ancestors of the Cherokee nation were the first inhabitants of the Mount Pisgah region. First formal development by Euro-Americans occurred in the late 1880s, when George Vanderbilt purchased land near Buck Spring for a mountain retreat. The Blue Ridge Parkway through the area was opened to visitors in 1955, coinciding with a period of development and construction. The design intent during this time was to incorporate development into the natural landscape, which remains clearly evident today as there is little delineation between developed areas and natural forest. Much of this new development occurred on landscapes that already supported structures: an existing campground was expanded, a new inn was erected at the site of the Pisgah Forest Inn (1919), and the Buck Springs Overlook area was created on the property formerly owned by George Vanderbilt. Today, areas of the Mount Pisgah Recreation Area continue to reflect the period of development that occurred in association with the Blue Ridge Parkway, and it remains a popular attraction to tourists and visitors from Ashville and beyond. While the landscape has matured since its initial development and its first opening to automobile travel, the overall layout and views remain largely aligned with the original design aims of the NPS. The four component landscapes contained in the Mount Pisgah Recreation Area are Buck Springs Overlook, Mount Pisgah Campground, Pisgah Inn, and Mount Pisgah Picnic Area. These areas represent the main developed portions of the landscape, with the balance of the site heavily forested. Significant buildings, structures, and landscape features located within the landscape boundary are limited to the developed component landscapes. Historic buildings and structures include a springhouse that dates to around 1897. Comfort stations and an amphitheater associated with the campground were constructed around 1968. Two lodge buildings, a restaurant, gift shop, and camp store constructed after 1965 are located within the Pisgah Inn component landscape. Two cabins, dating to a 1919 inn complex, are also present within that landscape. Non-historic buildings are mostly limited to a comfort station located in the picnic area, as well as several buildings utilized for employee and ranger housing. Extant landscape features range in date from the 1890s through the 1960s. All other landscape features date to the mid-1960s, during the Blue Ridge Parkway period of significance. These features include developed overlooks and parking areas with designed plantings, as well as natural vegetation that is maintained for views and pedestrian access. Numerous hardscape features within the landscape date to this period, as well.

Mount Pisgah: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Blue Ridge Parkway - Pisgah District, National Park Service

Series

Collections