The mountain was logged for charcoal to fuel a furnace in Vandusenville at the corner of Division Street and Route 41 in Great Barrington.

Monument Mountain was a sacred place to the ancestors of the Mohican people dating back before written history.

It has been the subject of art and literature since as early as 1815 when the poet William Cullen Bryant penned "Monument Mountain," an account of the story of a Mohican woman who allegedly leapt from what is now called Peeskawso Peak.

[2] In the 1930s, red pines were planted on the reservation; by that time much of the mountain had been heavily logged for the charcoal industry in support of iron foundries in Falls Village, Connecticut and Lenox, Massachusetts.

A trailhead parking lot is located on Massachusetts Route 7 north of Great Barrington center.