28-05-2025
Birthplace of US forestry faces long recovery
ASHEVILLE, North Carolina — Around the turn of the 20th century, George Vanderbilt turned tens of thousands of acres of tired farmland and tattered woods into one of the country's first experiments with professional forestry.
Vanderbilt, a grandson of the shipping and railroad baron Cornelius Vanderbilt, first came to Asheville in 1888 with his mother, who sought out the mountainous area to recuperate from a long bout with malaria. George built a 125,000-acre summer estate here that was completed in 1895.
Much of that land later became the Pisgah National Forest. What remains in the family is the 8,000-acre luxurious Biltmore Estate, now going through one of the tougher tests since Vanderbilt's time: remaking parts of the forest after Hurricane Helene flattened trees across entire hilltops.
Advertisement
Andy Tait, a consulting forester on the property, is mindful of the history.
