History of Mount Pisgah
No matter from what direction you came you could see symmetrical Mount Pisgah dominating the skyline unless, of course, it was hidden by fog or clouds, as does happen from time to time.
The name “Pisgah” comes from the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy. There are at least two stories as to how this Biblical mountain’s name came to the applied in Western North Carolina.
In 1775 General Griffith Rutherford led an expedition against the Cherokees. Accompanying him as a chaplain was James Hall. The men of the expedition saw the mountain from the French Broad River valley – a land of milk and honey, a promised land. James Hall, preacher and soldier, is credited with applying the Biblical appellation to this mountain.
Then there was George Newton, a Presbyterian minister who taught school in the early 1800’s at what became Newton Academy in Asheville. Reverend Newton is also credited with naming Mt. Pisgah. The first recorded appearance of the name “Mt. Pisgah” was in 1908.
Thomas Lanier Clingman was a United States Senator, Confederate general and somewhat given to controversy. Clingman’s Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is name for him. Mr. Clingman owned 300 acres on and around the top of Mt. Pisgah. Shortly before his death in 1897, he sold the land to George W. Vanderbilt.
George Washington Vanderbilt was the grandson of the “Commodore” Cornelius Vanderbilt. Mr. Vanderbilt began buying land south of Asheville in 1888 and, by the time he finished he owned about 125,000 acres, including Mt. Pisgah. Near Asheville, he built his famous Biltmore House, the grounds of which Fredrick Law Olmstead landscaped.
Two other famous names are associated with Vanderbilt and Biltmore Estate. In 1891, Gifford Pinchot, recently returned from studying forestry in Europe and became the Chief Forester of Biltmore. Here, with Mr. Vanderbilt’s strong support, he introduced scientific forestry to the United States. In 1898, Pinchot was named head of the new Forestry Division of the Department of Agriculture.
Dr. Carl A. Schenck of the University of Darmstadt in Germany came to the United States to succeed Pinchot. There were less than a half dozen trained foresters here, and all had studied forestry in Europe since there was no school in the United States.
With George W. Vanderbilt’s support, Dr. Schenck founded the Biltmore Forest School in 1898. Classes first met in the village of Biltmore, then later in their own modest log building on the estate. The nearby Cradle of Forestry in America preserves the site. Be sure to visit.
In 1914, the Forest Service purchased nearly 80,000 acres, including Mt. Pisgah, as a part of what is now the 479,000-acre Pisgah National Forest.
Situated in grand isolation at an altitude of 5,000-feet, the Pisgah Inn overlooks a magnificent sweeping vista of the Blue Ridge Mountains melting into the horizon toward South Carolina.
This particular view has often been an inspiration. George Weston, an architect and engineer who was superintendent of farms for George Vanderbilt, camped on the mountain. He told his wife he would like to spend the rest of his life in that spot. She agreed, and from their spontaneous statement grew the resolve to do just that. As a result, they began to build the Inn in 1917 and opened for business in 1920. The Inn was widely known in early days and many people who came once returned year after year, some spending the entire summer.
One man always brought his piano with him. From 1937 to 1951, Pisgah Inn had several interim managers. The war brought dreary days to the tourist business and the Old Inn fell into some disrepair. In 1951, it was purchased by Leslie and Leda Kirschner, former Long Islanders who found Pisgah Inn through an advertisement in a hotel review. They opened the Inn in 1952 and began a program of restoration. The present new Pisgah Inn complex opened in 1967 and operates under a contract with the National Park Service.
Today, a visitor who returns is thrilled to find that “so much remains as remembered from the past.”