In 1908 the Whiting Manufacturing Company of England bought a large tract of land in the Snowbird Mountains in Graham County. Within this tract was a mountain known as Hoopers Bald. George Gordon Moore, an American advisor for the company, was allowed to establish a game reserve on company land on Hoopers Bald around 1909. In 1911, a 500- to 600-acre hog lot was constructed, with a split rail fence nine rails high.

In April 1912, a shipment of 14 European wild hogs, including 11 sows and 3 boars, arrived and was released in the lot. They each weighed approximately 60 to 75 pounds. They were purchased from an agent in Berlin, Germany, who claimed that they came from the Ural Mountains of Russia. The hogs arrived in Murphy by train and were hauled to Hoopers Bald by ox-drawn wagon. One sow died en route.

From the beginning the lot was not hog proof, and apparently some of the hogs rooted out and escaped and returned at will. The majority remained in the lot for eight to 10 years and increased in numbers. In the early 1920s, when the lot contained approximately 60 to 100 hogs, a hunt with dogs was conducted. Only two hogs were killed, but many escaped the lot during the hunt. The escapees became established in the surrounding mountain terrain of Graham County, North Carolina, and Monroe County, Tenn. Today Hoopers Bald is owned by the U.S. Forest Service and is a part of the Nantahala National Forest.

The boar thrived in Graham County and spread into other counties as well as the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In 1979 the boar was given the status of game animal by the N.C. legislature. The first open season was held in the Cherokee National Forest in 1936 and in the Nantahala National Forest in 1937.