Qualla: Monongahela National Forest

Monongahela National Forest: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

When eight white-tailed deer arrived from Michigan in January 1930 and were released near Parsons, West Virginia, the Monongahela National Forest was not yet what anyone would call wild. The surrounding hillsides had been clear-cut at the turn of the century. The deer that had once roamed these slopes were nearly gone. But the federal government, working under the 1911 Weeks Act, had been buying back the wreckage of the eastern logging boom, parcel by parcel, since 1915. Those eight deer - and seventeen more released between 1937 and 1939 - became the seed of a rebuilt herd. Within fifteen years, farmers in the surrounding valleys had to patrol their fields at night to keep the deer out of their crops. The Monongahela National Forest is, in many ways, the story of what humans can put back if they decide to stop taking.

Monongahela National Forest: Headwaters of Six Rivers

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The forest now covers over 921,000 federally managed acres within a 1.7 million-acre proclamation boundary, spanning portions of ten counties. Within those bounds lie the headwaters of six major rivers: the Monongahela, Potomac, Greenbrier, Elk, Tygart, and Gauley. The Allegheny ...

Monongahela National Forest: The Army's Climbing School

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1943 and 1944, parts of the forest became something stranger: a practice artillery range, mortar range, and assault-climbing school for the United States Army. Soldiers preparing for World War II in Europe trained on Seneca Rocks and other cliffs around the forest. This was th...

Monongahela National Forest: Wilderness in Eight Pieces

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Today the forest holds eight congressionally designated Wilderness Areas, ranging from the 47,815-acre Cranberry Wilderness to the much smaller Big Draft. The Dolly Sods Wilderness, with its windswept heath barrens and bog plant communities more characteristic of Canada than cent...

Monongahela National Forest: What the Forest Returns

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Wildlife came back in waves. The fisher, believed extinct in West Virginia by 1912, was reintroduced in 1969 when 23 animals were translocated from New Hampshire to Canaan Mountain and Cranberry Glades. The Monongahela's old-growth stands - 318 documented acres total, including F...