Grasslands or prairies were in the Plains, in the east, and in the west, My grandfather talked about his dad and friends ranging 300 head of cattle on Cade Mtn in the grassy openings on the hills. In early colonial settlement, Native Americans died off in large numbers due to European settlers chasing them out, killing them, or bringing unknown diseases that killed in large numbers. But that didn't happen until the late 17th and 18th centuries. The suppression of fire by settlers beginning in the 20th century further increased the forest density. But it is not nature.
Populations climb, subside, and disappear into extinction at times.
Where a horse could be ridden around the mountains in the past, it is now choked with woody plants from the ground to the crown. I met with Bill Besoin, Co Surveyor, and reviewed old documents and discussed pertinent land history of the Preston Peak area. Bill has researched much of the land's history around the Elk Licks area for Frank DeMarco. While there exists notes, surveyor's notes, maps and other indicators of human use of trails, no roads are shown to have existed to serve Elk Licks until roads were built to the area in the early 1960s. 17N32 was built to Elk Licks about 1962 or 63.