Bent Creek Campus of the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station

Bent Creek Campus is a cluster of Forest Service research buildings at the main entrance to the Bent Creek Experimental Forest, south of Asheville. It was the primary research facility of the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station, established in 1921. The one-story frame buildings, built between 1925 and the mid-1930s, include laboratories, insectaries, a bunk house and mess hall, a superintendent's house and office, garages and a shop. Most are clad in chestnut shakes, with fieldstone foundations and hewn corner posts, a Rustic approach meant to blend with the wooded setting. The 1931 buildings were designed by Asheville native Walter C. Bearden, and the superintendent's house was designed and built by Charles F. Pyke. Construction provided work for the unemployed during the Great Depression. The campus is significant for its role in the development of scientific forestry, as a product of federal relief programs, and as an early example of Rustic design in Forest Service architecture. It remains in research use today.