The Mountain Lake: David Sherman Collection contains papers collected by David Sherman while he working to establish a federal wilderness area around Mountain Lake in Giles County, Virginia during the 1980s. Old hotel brochures and articles printed in local magazines and guidebooks dating from 1870 to 2002 provide historical background on the area. Maps and photographs provide geographic information about the land. There is also a copy of a doctoral dissertation on the history of Mountain Lake written by Frederick C. Marland, a Virginia Tech graduate. Other material in the collection documents Sherman's effort to preserve the Mountain Lake area. These items include federal studies and reports about the environmental conditions generated by federal agencies, copies of legislation, and research and correspondence about local land ownership.