It is the highest elevation (4,449 ft; 1,356 m) of Shavers Mountain, a ridge of the Alleghenies, and is located about 1.7 miles (2.7 km) east of Cheat Bridge.

The knob had been a prominent, but unnamed, peak in a vast wilderness when in the late 1930s it was named in memory of Donald Gaudineer, one of the USFS's early rangers in the Monongahela National Forest (MNF).

In the mid-1930s Gaudineer was transferred to the Cheat Ranger District, at Parsons, and on April 27, 1936, he was killed while attempting to rescue his children from a house fire.

[3] Only the concrete footers remain from the fire tower that from 1936 through the 1970s surveyed the forest landscape surrounding Gaudineer Knob.

It was established in 1964 and was declared a National Natural Landmark in 1974 owing to a 50-acre (20 ha) virgin red spruce stand that was spared the lumberman's saw when the surrounding countryside was clear-cut in the early 20th century.