Mount Everett, the highest peak in the southern Taconic Mountains, rises above the upper Housatonic Valley and is a defining landmark of southwestern Massachusetts. Known for its broad summit views, unusual open woodland of pitch pine and scrub oak, Race Brook Falls, and the Appalachian Trail, it has long drawn hikers and visitors. The mountain also became important in science and regional culture: geologists made it a key site for understanding the Taconic Range, and Henry David Thoreau visited the area in 1844. Once widely called the Dome of the Taconics, its present name gradually gained acceptance after Edward Hitchcock proposed it in 1841.