Pisgah National Forest in western North Carolina is one of the earliest national forests in the eastern United States, established in 1916 from lands that included former Biltmore Estate property sold by Edith Vanderbilt and some of the first tracts acquired under the Weeks Act. Expanded by additions from Boone and Unaka national forests, it became significant both for its vast Appalachian landscape and for the history of American forestry. Its southern section contains the Cradle of Forestry and the Biltmore Forest School, where work under George Washington Vanderbilt II, Carl Schenk, and Gifford Pinchot helped shape the early U.S. Forest Service.