Mount Katahdin, Maine’s highest mountain at 5,269 feet, rises as an isolated granite massif in Baxter State Park, its prominent form shaped by ancient mountain-building and later glaciers. Known to Native Americans for thousands of years, it carried deep cultural meaning in Penobscot tradition and appeared in colonial accounts by 1689. Its first recorded ascent came in 1804 with surveyors aided by two Native American guides. In the 1840s, Henry David Thoreau’s writing helped secure its place in American literary imagination, while artists also celebrated it. Protected largely through Governor Percival Baxter’s efforts, Katahdin became a National Natural Landmark in 1967 and remains a famed, strenuous hiking destination.