Devil's Backbone State Forest

Devil's Backbone State Forest in Shenandoah County, Virginia, occupies a mountain landscape shaped by centuries of heavy use and later recovery. In the eighteenth century, nearby iron furnaces built by Isaac Zane relied on charcoal made from timber cut on these slopes. After the Civil War, a tannery and later quicklime production continued stripping the mountain's trees, leaving little forest by the mid-twentieth century. Beginning in 1950, John and Bernice Hoffman restored woodland by planting loblolly pine and encouraging native hardwoods. Under state management, the forest also became an important site for restoring the American chestnut, giving this small protected area broader significance in research and renewal.

Virginia · United States