Roads and trails in the cluster are shown on National Geographic Map 787 (Blacksburg, New River Valley).

The land form, climate, soils and geology of the Appalachian highlands, as well as its evolutionary history, have created one of the most diverse collection of plants and animals in the deciduous forests of the temperate world.

The province marks the eastern boundary in the Paleozoic era of an older land surface on the east.

Pyrite was also deposited in the valley leaving an acid soil which is infertile and was avoided by early settlers who wanted to grow crops.

Incorporated in 1886, it was once a major industrial center with railroad repair shops, textile factories and lumber mills.

Its proximity to lead mines, and the only salt works in the south, brought the attention of northern armies during the civil war.

A union cavalry effort to tear up the railroad line in 1863 was countered by the home guards of the confederate forces [8][9] Other clusters of the Wilderness Society's "Mountain Treasures" in the Jefferson National Forest (north to south):