Qualla: Cheat Mountain

Cheat Mountain: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brian M. Powell (user Bitmapped on en.wikipedia), CC BY-SA 3.0. In September 1861, Robert E. Lee directed his first offensive of the Civil War against a Union force entrenched on the top of Cheat Mountain. He believed he was attacking a few hundred men. His subordinate Colonel Albert Rust, who led the actual assault, became convinced he was facing an overwhelming Federal army. He was not - the Union garrison numbered only about 300 determined soldiers. The Confederate attacks were so uncoordinated and the Federal defense so stubborn that Lee called off the attack on September 15 and retreated. It was an inauspicious beginning to a military career that would, three years later, send the same general into Pennsylvania. Lee was recalled to Richmond on October 30, 1861, having achieved nothing notable in western Virginia.

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Image: Brian M. Powell (user Bitmapped on en.wikipedia) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cheat Mountain: A 50-Mile Ridge

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brian M. Powell (user Bitmapped on en.wikipedia), CC BY-SA 3.0. Cheat Mountain runs about 50 miles north to south through eastern West Virginia, more than five miles wide at its broadest. The high point is at the southern end, at Thorny Flat - 4,848 feet above sea level. Several other knobs along the ridge rise above 4,000 feet. The mountain ...

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Image: Brian M. Powell (user Bitmapped on en.wikipedia) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cheat Mountain: The Lost Red Spruce Forest

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stacy Hall, CC BY-SA 4.0. Before the loggers came, Cheat Mountain held the largest red spruce forest south of Maine - a high-elevation conifer ecosystem that descended from the last Ice Age, when boreal forests reached far south of their current range. The trees were enormous. Some red spruces on Cheat we...

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Image: Stacy Hall | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cheat Mountain: Camp Allegheny and Cheat Summit Fort

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brian M. Powell (user Bitmapped on en.wikipedia), CC BY-SA 3.0. The Civil War's western Virginia campaign produced more military activity on Cheat than the failed Lee offensive of September 1861. On the night of October 2-3, Union Brigadier General Joseph Reynolds advanced from Cheat Mountain with two brigades to reconnoiter the Confederate p...

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Image: Brian M. Powell (user Bitmapped on en.wikipedia) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cheat Mountain: From Clearcut to State Park and Ski Resort

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brian M. Powell (user Bitmapped on en.wikipedia), CC BY-SA 3.0. When the last commercial timber operations ended on Cheat around 1960, the mountain entered a long period of recovery. The Monongahela National Forest absorbed most of the ridge. The Cass Scenic Railroad State Park opened in 1963, using the same Shay-locomotive logging railroad t...

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Image: Brian M. Powell (user Bitmapped on en.wikipedia) | CC BY-SA 3.0