Rendezvous Mountain is popularly rumored to have been an assembly point for the
Overmountain Men during the
Revolutionary War. Colonel
Benjamin Cleveland is said to have called
militiamen from around
Wilkes County, by blowing a large
ox horn from the mountain's summit. Cleveland was able to summon over 200
Patriots from the surrounding area to join him on a march to the
Battle of Kings Mountain. The route they took is now commemorated by the nearby
Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail. In 1926, the park's original tract was donated to the state by Judge T. B. Finley of
North Wilkesboro for inclusion in the
State Park System; however, the unit was never opened to the public due to its small size, inaccessible location, and questionable historic significance. The
Civilian Conservation Corps constructed roads and trails around the mountain in the 1930s. They also built a cabin near the mountain's summit, which still remains. The land was transferred to the Division of Forestry in 1956. It was later opened to the public in 1984 as an educational state forest. In the early 2000s, the forest was greatly expanded when large tracts along its western boundary became available. The state forest grew to a peak size of . The Appropriations Act of 2021 instructed the NC Forest Service to transfer a mutually agreed upon portion of Rendezvous Mountain Educational State Forest to the NC Division of Parks and Recreation by February 1, 2022. Since the forest was already split into two disconnected areas, it was agreed that the original tract and all adjoining tracts, which contained the forest's visitor facilities, would be managed as a state park. Meanwhile, the undeveloped, Little Fork tract would be retained by the Forest Service, and it would be leased to the
North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission as a public game land. == References ==