A 20-year effort to protect a Madison County landmark from development achieved a major milestone at the end of 2018, as the town of Mars Hill closed on the purchase of a nearly 90-acre tract of Bailey Mountain December 27. The property will combine with a 197-acre tract on the southern slope of the 3,500-foot peak to create a public park.

“I’m pretty excited,” Town Manager Darhyl Boone said a day after hiking the property. “It’s just beautiful. This is going to be very nice. It’s a great asset that will be a destination for people from Mars Hill, Madison County and beyond to come see and enjoy.”

A $322,000 federal grant from the Land and Water Conservation Fund and a $250,000 state grant from the Clean Water Management Trust Fund combined to cover a lion’s share of the $675,000 closing price, according to Lee Hoffman, who helped spearhead the private effort to protect the mountain.

Backing from the Pigeon River Fund, the Town of Mars Hill, Mars Hill University and private donations also proved instrumental to the effort, Hoffman said. “The local support was pretty amazing. We had a really good team of people involved in that fundraising effort.”

Conservation, not development

As housing developments began to pop up in Madison County and across Western North Carolina in the 1990s, protecting Bailey Mountain from construction became a priority for Madison County residents. Looking to stop the iconic peak from development seen on Hamburg and Reynolds mountains in the region, the Richard L. Hoffman Foundation - named for Lee’s late father - snapped up 197 acres in 1996.

“We never really gave anybody the opportunity to develop it,” Hoffman said of the 280-plus acres now in conservation. “From development standpoint, it has city water and city sewer is close by. Lots of topography of the property is suitable for homes and it would have lent itself well to that kind of development.”

The two tracts border one another, with the recently purchased land accessible from Forest Street near Banjo Branch Road, a little more than a 1-mile walk from town. The land purchased in 1996 had no public access and required would-be hikers to pass through private property.

“When trails are developed, people can really begin to use it,” Hoffman said.

“We’re working on the recreation plan for the town and Bailey Mountain will be a part of that plan,” Boone said of efforts to secure grant from the state Parks and Rec Trust Fund.

With winter weather and colder temps keeping some inside for the next few months, Hoffman said any grand opening celebration for Bailey Mountain Park, as the site has come to be known, will be scheduled sometime in the summer.