The mountain became well known through Johann Wolfgang Goethe who visited the area first in 1776 when he - as minister of the mines - inspected the coal mines of Manebach on the western slope. On 7 May 1776 he visited Großer Hermannstein for the first time and returned several times until his last visit there on 29 August 1813. This location may have inspired him to a passage in Faust, Part One, lines 3228 to 3234. In 1776 he also sketched a view from Kickelhahn across the brumous valleys of the Thuringian Forest for Charlotte von Stein.