page_title: Mount Katahdin
section_title: Human history
hierarchical_section_title: Mount Katahdin / Human history
caption_attribution_description: English: Looking up from the Hunt Spur towards the Gateway from the Hunt Trail on Mount en:Katahadin, Maine, USA. The Hunt Trail is also the en:Appalachian Trail.
context_page_description: Mount Katahdin is the highest mountain in the U.S. state of Maine at 5,269 feet. Named Katahdin by the Penobscot Native Americans, which means "The Greatest Mountain", it is located within Northeast Piscataquis, Piscataquis County, and is the centerpiece of Baxter State Park. It is a steep, tall massif formed from a granite intrusion weathered to the surface. The flora and fauna on the mountain are typical of those found in northern New England.
  Katahdin was known to the Native Americans in the region, and was known to Europeans at least since 1689. It has inspired hikes, climbs, journal narratives, paintings, and a piano sonata. The area around the peak was protected by Governor Percival Baxter starting in the 1930s. Katahdin is the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, and is located near a stretch known as the Hundred-Mile Wilderness.
  In 1967, Mount Katahdin was designated as a National Natural Landmark by the National Park Service.
  The mountain is commonly called just "Katahdin", though the official name is "Mount Katahdin" as decided by the US Board on Geographic Names in 1893.
context_section_description: Katahdin is referred to 60 years after Field's climb of Agiokochuk (Mount Washington) in the writings of John Gyles, a teenage colonist who was captured near Portland, Maine in 1689 by the Abenaki.  While in the company of Abenaki hunting parties, he traveled up and down several Maine rivers including both branches of the Penobscot, passing close to "Teddon".  He remarked that it was higher than the White Hills above the Saco River.
  Among some Native Americans, Katahdin was believed to be the home of the storm god Pamola, and thus an area to be avoided.
  The first recorded climb of "Catahrdin" was by Massachusetts surveyors Zackery Adley and Charles Turner, Jr. in August 1804.  In the 1840s Henry David Thoreau climbed Katahdin, which he spelled "Ktaadn"; his ascent is recorded in a well-known chapter of The Maine Woods.  A few years later Theodore Winthrop wrote about his visit in Life in the Open Air.  Painters Frederic Edwin Church and Marsden Hartley are well-known artists who created landscapes of Katahdin. On 30 November 2011, Christie's auctioned Church's 1860 painting Twilight (Katahdin) for $3.1 million.
  In the 1930s Governor Percival Baxter began to acquire land and finally deeded more than 200,000 acres (809 km²) to the State of Maine for a park, named Baxter State Park after him.   The summit was officially recognized by the US Board on Geographic Names as "Baxter Peak" in 1931.
caption: The Appalachian Trail on Katahdin's Hunt Spur
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