[5] European settlers logged the area's forests for lumber and charcoal, the latter used as a source for nearby iron foundries, which helped supply ordnance in the American Civil War.

[3] During the late 19th century's Gilded Age much of Yokun Ridge was held by a handful of large estates, including the Stokes property, whose 1894 "Shadowbrook Cottage" below Baldhead was at the time reputedly the largest residence in America.

[citation needed] The American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, who briefly lived near Yokun Ridge, describes a fictional walk to the top of Baldhead in his A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys (1852).

In the same work, Hawthorne describes Shadow Brook, the local name for a minor stream that flows in the ravine separating Baldhead from the southern reach of Lenox Mountain.

[16] The New York Philharmonic gave a series of summer concerts in 1934 at the Hanna Estate, located on the lower east side of West Stockbridge Mountain.

[citation needed] Beginning in the 1970s, the Berkshire Natural Resources Council and others helped to further highlight the area's recreational and scenic potential,[7][8] in part by offering the invented name "Yokun Ridge" to emphasize its then relatively unrecognized continuity.

Called the "Stockbridge-Yokun Ridge Reserve," it consists of 6,300 acres and is among at least five in Massachusetts authorized in 1993 by the program, which enables federal purchases of conservation easements.

[17][18] The northern boundary of the Stockbridge-Yokun Ridge Reserve conservation zone includes Mud Pond and its surrounding wetlands, and the outlying summit of South Mountain 1,388 feet (423 m).

[citation needed] In December 2010, the Berkshire Natural Resources Council closed on the purchase of 80 acres of land around Mahanna Cobble from the Bousquet Ski Area after two years of negotiation.

Cooperative agreements with towns, private landholders, and MAS and BNRC have resulted in the marking of a ridgeline trail extending from the southern end of West Stockbridge Mountain to the Bousquet Ski Area.