Land forms that make up this site within the Great Pisgah Range were moved westward over 180 miles in geosynclinic folds by upthrusts and overthrusts of the metamorphosed beds of sea sediments by forces of the African Plate grinding against the North American Plate. This took place over a period of 240 million years. At the present time of the geologic clock this formation called Devil's Courthouse exposes a rock face of granitic gneiss.

the Whiteside pluton is technically not a single mountain about one mile in width but a "massif" extending about four miles; that is, it "includes the Devil's Courthouse on the northwest and Wildcat Ridge on the southwest (while) the width of the massif averages only about one-half mile