History
According to historian W.F. Horn, Cheat Mountain was named for Jacques Cheate, a French Canadian trapper who in 1723 had been given the right to hunt, trap and fish in the region.
In 1861, under the command of General George B. McClellan, the Union Army built a fort called Cheat Summit, the highest elevation fort occupied during the Civil War. The ramparts of this fort still exist and can be reached today by a short (but steep) bike ride from the Club.
Between 1870 and 1920 nearly 90% of the virgin forest in West Virginia was cut for lumber. This included Cheat Mountain. CMC guests can get a sense of the size of those trees by crossing the swing-bridge and following the Nature Conservancy trail to a stand of “the Sentinels” — three old-growth hemlocks, which due to a surveying error, were spared the axe.
Following the Civil War and the rise of industrialism, a group of like-minded, sporting individuals from Pittsburgh established the Sportsman's Association of Cheat Mountain and began building the Lodge of hand hewn spruce. When the lodge was completed in 1887, the journey to one of the most remote retreats in the Alleghenies took three days by rail and wagon from Pittsburgh.
The list of influential visitors to the lodge in the early days included Andrew W Mellon, Henry Clay Frick, and Henry Phipps.
In 1915, ownership changed hands, and the name was changed to the Cheat Mountain Club.
In August 1918 the Club hosted its most famous guests: Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, and the naturalist John Burroughs. The group called themselves "The Vagabonds." The famous foursome travelled together for a number of years, often camping, to promote the concept of automobile travel in America.
In 1947 the Club was purchased by the Western Railway, was sold again in 1964 to the Mower Lumber Company, and sold again in 1987 to a group led by visionary Carl Frischkorn who not only saw the potential for opening a unique wilderness hotel, but for reviving the spirit of the founders, preserving the land and building community.
A handful of 3-acre lots were set aside for unique homes to be built under strict covenants designed to conform with the natural environment. These homes, along with the The Cheat Mountain Club, comprise the Hatchery Run Homeowners Association, HRHA.
