Trail Years - Appalachian Trail Conservancy

64 Pages·2001·1.76 MB·English

TRAIL
YEARS
A History of the Appalachian
Trail Conference
APPALACHAPIPAANLATCHRIAAINLTCRAIOLNFERENCE
CaretakersMoAfINEATmOeGriEcOaR’GIsAHikingTrail
1925–2000
Appalachian Trailway
News
Special 75th Anniversary Issue
APPALACHIANTRAIL
MAINETOGEORGIA
Trail Years
By Brian B. King
I
Coolidge” election. J. Edgar Hoover is shaking up the Federal
t’s 1925. Birth year of Paul Newman,
Bureau of Investigation he has recently been named to direct
Bobby Kennedy, Margaret Thatcher,
and is trying to manage the resurgent Ku Klux Klan, reaching
Pol Pot, and B.B. King. And television. its zenith of strength. Also at their zeniths are the jazz clubs of
Harlem and Chicago’s South Side.
“Oscar” hasn’t been born yet, but
It’s Monday, March 2, at the grand Raleigh Hotel, which
Charlie Chaplin is working on “The
stands roughly midway between Mr. Coolidge’s White House
Gold Rush.” In Germany, just out of and the east portico of the Capitol where Chief Justice William
prison, Adolf Hitler is completing Mein Kampf Howard Taft will administer the oath of office on Wednesday.
At 2:15 p.m., perhaps two dozen people—mostly men, mostly
and reorganizing the Nazi party. Josef Stalin is
from points north—sit down at the hotel in a meeting room off
neutralizing Leon Trotsky. Ho Chi Minh is form- the spare but marble-appointed lobby.
ing the Vietnamese Nationalist Party. Picasso is They have come to discuss an idea—a dream, really—that
has caught their imagination and that
working on his trend-break-
actually appears feasible: the Appala-
ing “La Danse” in Paris, chian Trail. It is a work in progress, a
Theodore Dreiser is wrapping product of volunteerism. To realize it,
they form an organization that will
up An American Tragedy,
become the Appalachian Trail Confer-
and H.L. Mencken is raving ence.
on in Baltimore. The United In reviewing the seventy-five-year
history of the organization they inau-
States population is less than
gurated that day, what becomes clear
half that of today. is that it is a history of eras more than
It’s March. The first issue of The of personalities: first, building a con-
New Yorker has just been published, tinuous Trail; second, protecting that
and the “Jazz Age” wake-up call of Trail with a “Trailway”; third, manag-
The Great Gatsby is just about to be. ing and promoting that Trail as a ma-
Al Capone takes over the Chicago jor American public recreational re-
mob. The worst tornado in American source and oasis of natural eastern-
history kills up to seven hundred mountain resources.
people in the Midwest. Tennessee Those eras have not been mutu-
bans the teaching of evolutionary ally exclusive periods. Instead, a cross-
theory, setting the stage for one of the section of that history might look more
first major nonelection news events like a marble cake, with a particular
covered by radio, the Scopes Trial. goal growing for several years and then
It’s the first week of March in diminishing as others grow—never
(Above) The Raleigh Hotel, Washington, D.C. (Top
Washington, D.C. Most of the official of page) Lobby of the hotel. (Library of Congress) completely vanishing. Moreover, the
side of town is absorbed with prepa- organization’s leadership, particularly
rations for the inauguration of Calvin Coolidge, who became after the pioneer period when personalities did dominate it, never
president when the scandal-plagued Warren Harding died in has seemed to stop asking, “What do we do next…without com-
office, and who has just won the 1924 “Keep Cool with promising what we have already done?”
1925
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APPALACHIANTRAIL
The Era of Trail-Building MAINETOGEORGIA
SPECIAL COMMEMORATIVE ISSUE—JULY 2000
“T ATN
he first Appalachian Trail Conference was called…for
the purpose of organizing a body of workers (repre-
sentative of outdoor living and of the regions adja-
cent to the Appalachian range) to complete the building of the
Appalachian Trail. This purpose was accomplished,” say the
APPALACHIAN TRAILWAY NEWS
minutes, apparently written by the New England dreamer whose
grand idea was being realized that March afternoon, Benton
MacIKt awyea.s a time of associations and federations, all eager to CAaPrePtAaLkeArCsHMoAAPIfIPANANELAATTCmOHRIAeAGrINiLEcTOCaRRA’IGOLIsANHiFkiERngENTrCEail
1925–2000
improve mankind’s lot: The Regional Planning Association of
Editor: Robert A. Rubin
America, of which MacKaye was a member, had asked the Fed-
erated Societies on Planning and Parks to call the meeting. The
Cover photos—Clockwise from top: A.T. maintainers secure
latter was a coalition of the American Civic Association, the the first A.T. sign on Katahdin in 1935; Benton MacKaye and
American Institute of Park Executives and American Park So- Myron Avery in an undated photograph from Avery’s scrap-
ciety, and the National Conference on State Parks. Its presi- book; frequent A.T. thru-hiker Warren Doyle adds his particular
dent, Frederic A. Delano, described it as “a pooling of common artistry to the science of measuring the Trail; A.T. supporters
at the 1928 conference take a trolley excursion. Back cover:
interests and not a compromise of conflicting interests,” an
1916 Sunderland Place, shared headquarters for ATC and the
explanation later used to explain the relationship between the
Potomac Appalachian Trail Club from 1947 through 1967.
Appalachian Trail Conference and autonomous Trail-maintain-
ing clubs and their volunteers. Trail Years: A History of ATC,
MacKaye had spent most of the previous four years pros- By Brian B. King 2
elytizing in behalf of the Appalachian Trail project he had pro- • The Era of Trail-Building 3
posed in his October 1921 article in the Journal of the Ameri- • The Era of Trail Protection 12
can Institute of Architects (see box on page 5). His essay, “An • The Era of Management and Promotion 52
Appalachian Trail: A Project in Regional Planning,” was clas-
Trail Profiles: ATC’s Volunteer Leadership Over Eight
sic early 20th-century American utopianism—half-pragmatic
Decades
and half-philosophical, fully in keeping with the intellectual
• Benton MacKaye and the Path to the First A.T.
climate of the urban East following World War I. It reacted to
Conference, By Larry Anderson 17
the shocks of the war and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia
• The Short, Brilliant Life of Myron Avery,
and to the emerging technologies of petroleum, petrochemi-
By Robert A. Rubin 22
cals, and pharmaceuticals after nearly a century of rapid indus-
trialization. A close reading reveals an ambitious social and • Judge Perkins, in His Own Words,
political agenda for an America on the post-war move, not just By Arthur Perkins 29
a hiking trail. • Murray Stevens: A Time for Transition and
MacKaye (pronounced “Ma-Kye,” rhyming with “sky”), a Consolidation, By Robert A. Rubin 30
lean, wiry, highly active 42-year-old Yankee’s Yankee, plainly • Stan Murray and the Push for Federal A.T.
didn’t like where America was moving—especially by motor Protection, By Judy Jenner 31
vehicle and especially into ever more crowded cities. He had • The Last Quarter-Century: Six Conference
first outlined his proposal’s possibilities as a turn-of-the-cen-
Chairs in an Evolving Trail Landscape,
tury undergraduate working in what would become the East’s
By Judy Jenner 33
first national forest in the White Mountains of New Hamp-
• Where Now? Survey of Board Members,
shire. He would continue that work as a graduate forestry stu-
By Robert A. Rubin 39
dent at Harvard University and as a land-acquisition researcher
Trail Work
and forester under the renowned Gifford Pinchot, first chief of
• A Trail-Builder Reflects on the State of the Art
the U.S. Forest Service and a key MacKaye mentor. By the 1920s,
when both he and Pinchot had been exiled from the Forest Ser- after 75 Years, By Mike Dawson 40
vice, he presented the Trail concept as “a new approach to the Trail Notes—Along the Trail over Eight Decades 42
problem of living,” a means both “to reduce the day’s drudg- Dates and Statistical Record 50
ery” and to improve the quality of American leisure.
Though MacKaye’s article clearly began the A.T. project,
Appalachian Trailway News (ISSN 0003-6641) is published bimonthly, except for January/February, for
the idea of a long trail running along the Appalachians did not $15 a year by the Appalachian Trail Conference, 799 Washington Street, Harpers Ferry, WV 25425, (304)
535-6331. Bulk-rate postage paid at Harpers Ferry, WV, and other offices. Postmaster: Send change-of-
emerge overnight, in isolation. address Form 3597 to Appalachian Trailway News, P.O. Box 807, Harpers Ferry, WV 25425.
Copyright © 2000, The Appalachian Trail Conference. All rights reserved. 1925
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APPALACHIANTRAIL
MAINETOGEORGIA The Era of Trail-Building . . .
Early “trampers,” Catherine E. Robbins, Hilda M. Kurth, and Kathleen M. Norris, in a 1927 brochure published by the Central Vermont
Railway promoting the Long Trail. Ironically, it was highways, not railways, that made access to distant trailheads possible. (ATC Archives)
The first two decades of the century man, ATC members whose 1980s book, Appalachian Trail conference, MacKaye
had seen the emergence not only of for- Forest and Crag, traced the history of said his “dream…may well have origi-
est conservation, but also of a strong hik- northeastern trail-building, attribute the nated” at the end of a hike to the peak of
ing or “tramping” movement in New En- feverish activity of this period in New Vermont’s Stratton Mountain in July
gland and New York. A broad array of England and New York–New Jersey to the 1900. Climbing to the top of a tree for
path-building efforts by small clubs in emergence of the automobile. It changed better views, he wrote, “I felt as if atop
New England and New York’s Hudson the pattern of trail-building from loops the world, with a sort of ‘planetary feel-
River valley was underway. Many who and mountain climbs centered on particu- ing’…. Would a footpath someday reach
spearheaded those efforts also dreamed of lar mountain vacation spots to through- [far-southern peaks] from where I was
a “grand trunk“ trail, stretching the en- trails connecting mountain ranges—sim- then perched?” MacKaye in his later years
tire length of the eastern Appalachian ply because hikers now could more easily was not consistent in his recollections of
ridge lands. And, those dreamers got to- travel to other, less-developed trailheads. the source of the A.T. idea. However, his
gether from time to time. biographer, Larry Anderson, notes that
In late 1916, the New England Trail most of his accounts indicate the idea did
The “Big One”
A
Conference (NETC) met for the first time evolve to a marked extent from his turn-
to coordinate the work of that region’s ll that activity is one part of of-the-century hikes and backcountry ex-
trail-making agencies and clubs. Behind what led to the A.T.—“the big plorations.
that meeting were James P. Taylor, the one” in eastern trail-building It would be a mistake to assume that
guiding spirit of Vermont’s Long Trail, col- circles—culminating many years of trail- MacKaye was advocating a hiking uto-
umnist Allen Chamberlain of the Boston builders’ hopes and plans. The other is, pia—although he did cast his idea in
Evening Transcript, a hiker and past presi- of course, MacKaye himself. It was his terms of a footpath and he did relish the
dent of the Appalachian Mountain Club full-length proposal that came to fruition. outdoors and relatively short hikes and
(AMC), and New Hampshire forester For MacKaye, as with any celebrated backpacking trips. Yet, hiking for its own
Philip W. Ayres, a major force behind es- dreamer, philosopher, or grand visionary, sake, as recreation or a means to personal
tablishment of the White Mountain Na- personal history had necessarily become fulfillment, was not the goal he espoused.
tional Forest. integral to his thinking (see box, page 5). MacKaye’s whole work product after
Laura and the late Guy Water- In a 1964 message to the sixteenth college tells the story of a man seeking
1925
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APPALACHIANTRAIL
to offset what he saw as the harm that MacKaye constructed for the rest of his gether, they began work on the es- MAINETOGEORGIA
rapid mechanization and urbanization life a new, alternative family of profes- say that MacKaye would publish in
inflicts on mankind. He sought regenera- sional associates, the men and women Whitaker’s Journal.
tion of the human spirit through a sort of who would build the Trail, and leading “On that July Sunday half a century
harmony with primeval influences. To urban-life theorist Lewis Mumford. They ago, the seed of our Trail was planted,”
him, walking was a means to an end—an also included attorney Harvey Broome MacKaye told ATC Chairman Stanley A.
intermediate end of understanding what (his surrogate son, in the eyes of some) Murray nearly fifty years later. “Except
he termed the “forest civilization,” which and the other conservationists with for the two men named, it would never
in turn was the means of understanding whom he would found The Wilderness have come to pass.”
human civilization. Society in the 1930s. But, more immedi- Why did MacKaye’s proposal take off
Then, on April 18, 1921, while in ately, MacKaye was depressed and unpro- when other northeasterners’ did not? At
New York City, his life took a sudden ductive. His friend, editor Charles Harris least for the period of the 1920s, a three-
turn. MacKaye’s wife of four years—Jessie Whitaker, urged him to come to New Jer- part answer can be suggested.
Belle Hardy Stubbs, a prominent and sey and stay with him until he worked First, MacKaye’s was a grander—and
forceful woman-suffragist the decade be- his way through his grief. thus more inspiring—vision uncompli-
fore—jumped to her death into the East That summer, on Sunday, July 10, cated by practical, field-level details and,
River. She had run to the bridge from 1921, MacKaye was at the Hudson Guild until later, “action plans.”
Grand Central Station, where she had just Farm in Netcong in the New Jersey High- Second, his article is replete with
been at his side; they had been buying lands with Whitaker to meet Clarence hints about the publicity value of one as-
tickets to the country where she, often Stein, chairman of the committee on com- pect of the proposal or another, which he
depressed, could rest. munity planning of the Washington-based intended to exploit and was encouraging
Not having any children of his own, American Institute of Architects. To- supporters to exploit as well. As his bi-
Benton MacKaye
After Harvard, in 1905, he joined the new U.S. Forest
Service under Gifford Pinchot. MacKaye later recalled a
Benton MacKaye, born in 1879 in Stamford, Connecticut, was meeting of the Society of American Foresters at Pinchot’s
the sixth child and last son of then-famous playwright, actor, home in “about 1912” to which he read a new paper by his
and inventor (James) Steele MacKaye and the former Mary friend Allen Chamberlain of AMC. “[It] was, I think, the
Ellen (Mollie) Keith Medberry, described first dissertation on long-distance
by the curator of the family’s papers as footways,” he wrote.
“fully equal to her husband’s creativity, By his early thirties, MacKaye’s
daring, and flamboyance.” focus shifted from science, woodlot
From the time he was nine, MacKaye management and other aspects of
began living year-round at the family silviculture, to the humanities: the effect
retreat in rural Shirley Center, Massachu- of resource management on humans. The
setts, and wandering the countryside, discipline that would later be called
alone or under the guidance of a neighbor- “regional planning” seemed best to
ing farmer. His genius father was often capture his interests.
away on the call of the theatre life. He In 1920, he began a lifelong associa-
lost one older brother at age ten, his tion with Charles Harris Whitaker, editor
father at age fifteen. of the Journal of the American Institute
At age fourteen, he began an inten- of Architects and a proponent of the
sive, documented countryside explora- “garden cities” or “new towns“ in vogue
tion, compiling a journal of nine “expedi- in English planning circles that would
tions”—combining walking with investi- not become as popular in the United
gation of the natural environment—on States until the 1960s and 1970s. Before
which a 1969 MacKaye book, Expedition he published his Appalachian Trail
Nine, was based. proposal, they worked together on a
Four years later, in 1897, he had that A young Benton MacKaye (ATC Archives) regional plan for seven Northern Tier
first taste of wilderness he would recall as states that involved “new towns”
the genesis of his A.T. notions: bicycling from Boston with clustered near raw materials and power sources, connected
college friends to Tremont Mountain in New Hampshire and to consuming towns by postal roads: a calculated use of
then hiking into the backcountry. He saw it then as “a second resources, with a social and economic conscience.
world—and promise!”
1925
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APPALACHIANTRAIL
MAINETOGEORGIA The Era of Trail-Building . . .
ographer Larry Anderson has shown (see MacKaye continued. “It embodies three thought it could all be done within fif-
article on page 17), with help from former main necessities: (1) shelter and food (a teen months, in time for the United
mentors, he courted reporters and colum- series of camps and stores); (2) convey- States’ 150th anniversary.
nists who would give the idea more gen- ance to and from the neighboring cities, Others spoke of specific aspects’ po-
eral exposure. by rail and motor; (3) the footpath or trail tentials—many still resonate today.
Third, he, Stein, and Whitaker worked itself connecting the camps. Francois E. Matthes of the U.S. Geologi-
their social and professional connections “But, unlike the railway, the trailway cal Survey foresaw both nature-guide and
vigorously. A cover note by Stein on re- must preserve (and develop) a certain en- historic-guide services. For him, the min-
prints of MacKaye’s article noted the utes recalled, the ultimate purpose of the
foundations already laid for a north-south A.T. was “to develop an environment
through-trail by AMC, the Green Moun- wherein the people themselves (and not
tain Club, and others in the New England merely their experts) may experience—
Trail Conference, a new AMC chapter in through contact and not mere print—a
Asheville (which became the independent basic comprehension of the forces of na-
Carolina Mountain Club in June 1923), ture (evidence in forest growth, in water
the success of the Palisades Interstate power, and otherwise) and of the conser-
Parkway in New York and New Jersey, vation, use, and enjoyment thereof.”
and the more utopian cooperative farms Fred F. Schuetz of the Scout Leaders
and camps being developed in New Jer- Association, who would spend the rest of
sey and Pennsylvania. his life involved with ATC, extolled
From 1921 to 1925, MacKaye split his “tributary trails” from cities to the
time exploring two connected, but ulti- ridgecrests. Arthur C. Comey, secretary
mately distinct roles: as the originator of of the New England Trail Conference,
the Appalachian Trail idea, and as one of gave a little workshop on “going light,”
the early practitioners of what would be so that “the knapsack should serve as an
called “regional planning”—big-picture instrument and not an impediment in the
thinking about landscape and commu- art of outdoor living.”
nity. As Larry Anderson shows, his net- Clarence Stein closed that session
working and persistence during this four- with the regional planners’ view of the
year period was crucial to getting the first Major Willam A. Welch presided over the situation: “two extreme environments…
conference together at the Raleigh Hotel first A.T. conference. (New York Times) the city and the crestline…. The further
that Monday in March 1925. ‘Atlantis’ [the growing East Coast mega-
vironment. Otherwise, its whole point is lopolis] is developed on the one hand, the
lost. The railway ‘opens up’ a country as greater the need of developing ‘Appala-
The First Conference
T
a site for civilization; the trailway should chia’ on the other.”
he conferees spent that first after- ‘open up’ a country as an escape from civi- With the Trail route more advanced
noon talking about the potential of lization…. The path of the trailway in New England, New York, and New Jer-
the A.T. project, with MacKaye should be as ‘pathless’ as possible; it sey, the meeting concentrated the next
leading off. should be the minimum consistent with morning on the other regions. Clinton S.
“Its ultimate purpose is to conserve, practical accessibility. Smith, forest supervisor of the Cherokee
use, and enjoy the mountain hinterland,” “But, railway and trailway, each one National Forest, showed the possibilities
he said. “The Trail (or system of trails) is is a way—each ‘goes somewhere,’ Mac- allowed by Forest Service trails systems
a means for making the land accessible. Kaye concluded. “Each has the lure of dis- in the central and southern Appalachians,
The Appalachian Trail is to this Appala- covery—of a country’s penetration and while others addressed the challenges of
chian region what the Pacific Railway unfolding. The hinterland we would un- a trail in the two proposed national parks
was to the Far West—a means of ‘open- fold is not that from Cape to Cairo, but and the areas between. Pennsylvania and
ing up’ the country. But a very different that from Maine to Georgia.” Maryland possibilities were also ad-
kind of ‘opening up.’ Instead of a railway The group agreed to his suggestion dressed.
we want a ‘trailway’…. that the trail-building effort be divided The Trail’s “main line” under the
“Like the railway, the trailway into five regions, with one or two particu- plans adopted at that meeting would run
1925 should be a functioning service,” lar sections to focus on within each. He an estimated 1,700 miles from Mt. Wash-
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APPALACHIANTRAIL
ington in New Hampshire to Cohutta visor Verne Rhoades, who was named sachusetts and Pennsylvania sup- MAINETOGEORGIA
Mountain in Georgia. Extensions were vice chairman. (In the 1930s, the U.S. porters and, perhaps most importantly,
proposed to Katahdin in Maine, in the Forest Service chief and the National Park piqued the interest of a young lawyer who
north, and, in the south, to Lookout Service director would be honorary vice had been associated with his Hartford law
Mountain in Tennessee and then to Bir- chairmen or vice presidents of ATC.) firm, a 27-year-old Harvard Law School
mingham, Alabama. “Branch lines“ were Other seats were allotted to the Regional graduate, Myron H. Avery (see article on
projected on the Long Trail in Vermont, Planning Association, the Federated So- page 22).
from New Jersey into the Catskills, from cieties, and the National Conference on At the annual January meeting of
Harpers Ferry toward Buffalo, from the Outdoor Recreation. Comey and Charles NETC in Boston in 1927, Perkins heard
Tennessee River into Kentucky, and from P. Cooper of Rutland, Vermont, held MacKaye deliver a speech entitled “Out-
Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina NETC seats; Torrey and Frank Place rep- door Culture: The Philosophy of Through
toward Atlanta. resented the New York–New Jersey Trail Trails.” Borrowing themes developed by
After a luncheon speech by National Conference; A.E. Rupp, chief of the state Executive Committee member Chauncey
Park Service Director Stephen Mather, an department of lands and waters, and J. Hamlin, chairman of the National Con-
advocate of trails in parks, the business Bruce Byall represented the Pennsylvania ference on Outdoor Recreation, it comes
part of the meeting was called to order region; Dr. H.S. Hedges of the University across on paper today as a true tub-thump-
by its chairman, Major William Welch of of Virginia and G. Freeman Pollock, presi- ing political oration in behalf of the A.T.
New York’s Palisades Interstate Park. In dent of the Northern Virginia Park Asso- project. It certainly inspired Perkins, who
short order, the Conference was made a ciation, represented their state; and asked to hear it again later that year.
permanent body (although it would be al- Rhoades and Paul M. Fink, a rustic trail- American cities represent humans’
most twelve years before it would be in- blazer from Jonesboro, Tennessee, cov- tendency to “over-civilize,” MacKaye
corporated as such) and a provisional con- ered the rest of the South. asserted. They are as “spreading, un-
stitution was adopted. That constitution, The Appalachian Trail Conference’s thinking, ruthless“ as a glacier. Ancient
written by MacKaye, provided for man- first goal—completing the proposed foot- Rome declined because its “Civilizees”
agement of ATC affairs by a fifteen-mem- path—was set; although it had yet to be had gone as far as they could; “the Bar-
ber executive committee—two from each perceived as an organization rather than barian at her back gate [gave Rome] its
region and five chosen at large. a name for a meeting, its fate was forever cleansing invasion from the hinterland.”
The chairmanship was awarded to tied to that of the Trail. What was needed in America was a simi-
Welch, who was just past the midpoint lar invasion.
of a career with the Palisades Park that Momentum falters briefly MacKaye said he hoped for develop-
would earn him renown as father of New A ment of a modern American Barbarian,
York’s state park movement. MacKaye fter the meeting, however, ac- “a rough and ready engineer” and explorer
was elected field organizer, outdoor col- tual work in terms of completed who would mount the crests of the Ap-
umnist and New York–New Jersey Trail Trail mileage fell off. Planning palachians “and open war on the further
Conference advocate Raymond Torrey and publicity went on, carefully and in encroachment of his mechanized Uto-
was appointed treasurer, and Harlean detail, but field progress—in recruitment pia…. [The] philosophy of through
James, already executive secretary of the of volunteers and construction of Trail— trails…is to organize a Barbarian inva-
Federated Societies on Planning and lost momentum due to lack of leadership. sion…. Who are these modern Barbarians?”
Parks, was appointed secretary (a position It was as if the effort to convene the con- he asked. “Why, we are—the members of
she would hold for the next sixteen years). ference and to legitimatize the dreams the New England Trail Conference….
The composition of that initial ex- and grand plans had exhausted a substan- “The Appalachian Range should be
ecutive committee underscores the sort tial part of the energy fueling the A.T. placed in public hands and become the
of collaboration that became a key tradi- movement—or at least the energy of its site for a Barbarian Utopia. It matters little
tion of the Trail. Some have viewed it as designated field organizer, MacKaye. A whether the various sections be State
an experiment in participatory democ- different sort of energy was required to lands or Federal,” MacKaye declared,
racy, others have called it cooperative build treadway. more than four decades before the Con-
management of national resources, and In 1926, a retired Connecticut law- gress would agree.
still others have described it as a unique yer and former police court judge named Later in the meeting, MacKaye, Ma-
partnership between the public and pri- Arthur Perkins, then active with the New jor Welch, and Judge Perkins got to-
vate sectors. England Trail Conference, arrived to gether to discuss ATC business. Welch’s
In addition to the five regional divi- breathe new life into the project. By 1927, work in park, camp, and highway devel-
sions of the Conference, seats on the com- he was pressing to be appointed to fill a opment was increasing, not only in New
mittee were specifically allocated to Col. vacancy from New England on the A.T. York but as a consultant to public figures
W.B. Greeley, chief of the U.S. Forest Ser- executive committee. In addition to Con- from presidents to industrialists and to
vice, and Pisgah National Forest Super- necticut trail work, he galvanized Mas- domestic and foreign park experts. A
1925
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APPALACHIANTRAIL
MAINETOGEORGIA The Era of Trail-Building . . .
man who reportedly refused all interviews clubs and the New York–New Jersey Trail and attended club meetings in New En-
(in sharp contrast to MacKaye), Welch Conference. gland, too. Conference scrapbooks from
wanted to relinquish an active ATC role. With Perkins at his side much of the this period repeatedly refer to MacKaye
As a result, Perkins informally took over time, Avery, with his dual ATC/PATC as “our Nestor” (referring to the wise
the leadership of the A.T. project. positions and phenomenal dedication to old counselor of Homer’s Odyssey). Biog-
In Washington, Myron Avery had the cause, set about indefatigably recruit- rapher Larry Anderson mentions that his
taken a job with what eventually became ing volunteers, organizing clubs, plotting role into the mid-1930s was mostly in-
the U.S. Maritime Commission. He loved routes—and flagging and cutting and con- spirational, publishing and speaking
the outdoors and was a natural leader. structing and blazing and measuring them about the idea of a wilderness trail.
Within weeks of being briefed on the A.T. and then writing construction manuals Avery’s concerns were more down to
by Judge Perkins, he organized the and guidebooks, publishing them with his earth. According to a history of PATC by
Potomac Appalachian Trail David Bates, Breaking Trail in
Club (PATC) and was elected the Central Appalachians,
its first president. The lower “Myron Avery kept a very
mid-Atlantic states would be- firm hand on all activities
come his first focus, although within the PATC.… He fol-
he and Raymond Torrey both lowed all projects in detail, of-
were concerned about Pennsyl- ten calling or writing to com-
vania. mittee chairmen to keep in
A second ATC meeting, touch or prod them along. He
in May 1928 in Washington, often planned the trips…in ev-
sponsored by Avery’s new club, ery detail.”
formalized Perkins’ role as act- PATC trips during its first
ing chairman and authorized four years resulted in the cut-
rewriting of the constitution ting of some 265 miles of Trail
and a more formal organization from central Pennsylvania to
for the federation. By the next central Virginia and creation of
year, when it was ratified in a whole string of new A.T.
Easton, Pennsylvania, it in- clubs south of Harpers Ferry to
cluded the institution of a six- Georgia, crucial to the comple-
teen-member Board of Manag- tion of the Trail. MacKaye later
ers, with a smaller executive praised “this vigorous club [as]
committee. Welch was elected a maker of clubs.”
honorary president; Perkins, Avery handled public rela-
chairman and trail supervisor; tions, wrote newspaper ar-
Ashton Allis, treasurer. Avery ticles, and dealt with the fed-
was named to both the Board eral agencies—all as a volunteer.
and the executive committee. There was no paid staff, and
The reworded purpose of Avery’s writings later were
the organization was to “pro- forceful in advocating a totally
Judge Arthur Perkins is credited with reviving the A.T. movement.
mote, establish and maintain a volunteer A.T. effort.
(ATC Archives)
continuous trail for walkers, Much of this southern Ap-
with a system of shelters and other nec- own money at first. Completing a con- palachian territory that Perkins, Avery,
essary equipment…as a means for stimu- tinuous footpath—primarily for solitary Hedges, Fink, and others charted for the
lating public interest in the protection, hiking—became Avery’s primary goal. A.T. was truly isolated backcountry,
conservation and best use of the natural MacKaye, who spent the winter of physically and culturally. Memoirs of
resources within the mountains and wil- 1928–29 working for Connecticut State some ATC pioneers say they weren’t even
derness areas of the East.” Five hundred Forester Austin F. Hawes, joined sure exactly where the Appalachians
miles of Trail, not all marked, were at Perkins—and perhaps Avery—on two of ended in the South. Some of the areas had
least open for travel, primarily the ex- the judge’s many scouting trips for the not been officially mapped topographi-
1925 isting links of the New England Trail between Katahdin and the Potomac cally by the federal government, and what
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APPALACHIANTRAIL
ceived by its pro- MAINETOGEORGIA
ponents and already
partly realized, is a
footpath for hikers
in the Appalachian
Mountains, extend-
ing from Maine to
Georgia, a distance of
some 1,300 miles.”
[Emphasis added.]
Access to the moun-
tains for “tramping,
camping, and out-
door recreation” was
the Trail’s purpose,
he said.
For the time be-
ing, though, the Trail’s
progress rather than
its philosophy occu-
Georgia A.T. Club volunteers on an early-1930s work trip rig a makeshift litter to carry out a club member who
pied his attention. By
has sprained an ankle. (ATC Archives)
1933, the U.S. For-
residents this wilderness had were highly often put to me by J.P. (Judge Perkins): est Service and the southern clubs re-
suspicious of those who penetrated its ‘When we get the Trail, Ben, what are we ported their third of the Trail completed.
hollows and ridges. Lacking road access, going to do with it?’” A.T. work also took a high priority within
hiking trails that could be connected What to do with it would become an clubs between the Susquehanna River in
into the A.T. after the New England/New increasingly contentious issue, and one Pennsylvania and New England, and
York models simply did not exist. But, by that would drive MacKaye and Avery progress there resumed. By that time, it
involving local citizens, the task was ac- apart. MacKaye’s vision was inspiring, but was only the Trail in Maine, rather than
complished, and new supporters were still essentially philosophical. In “The the South, that still seemed an impossible
enlisted in the project. Appalachian Trail: A Guide to the Study dream. Conference leaders considered
As Perkins prepared for the 1930 of Nature,” he reiterated his position that withdrawing the northern terminus to the
ATC general meeting in Skyland, Vir- trail-building was and should be only the original Mt. Washington point. Avery re-
ginia, he suffered a stroke from which he “first long step in the longer pursuit of sisted any desertion of the planned route
never fully recovered. Major Welch becoming harmonized with scenery—and through his native Maine and initiated an
chaired the meeting in his absence, and the primeval influence—the opposite of intensive survey of remote areas planned
Perkins later asked Avery to carry on his machine influence.” He declared the project for the Trail there and scouted earlier by
work, as acting chairman. Perkins would to be in its second stage: development of Perkins. That reinforced the local efforts
die in 1932, and among his pallbearers a primeval understanding. of such men as Walter D. Greene, a Broad-
would be both Avery and Benton Avery, on the other hand, was mov- way actor and Maine guide, and Helon N.
MacKaye. In 1931, with 1,207 miles of ing the Conference in a somewhat differ- Taylor, then a game warden and later su-
an estimated 1,300-mile Appalachian ent direction, narrowing the focus of the pervisor of Baxter State Park (home of Ka-
Trail completed, Avery was elected ATC organization’s stated intent, redefining tahdin).
chairman, a position he would hold for purposes of the project, and reinterpret- Work in every state now moved
the next twenty-one years, reelected six ing its history as he went. Often described rapidly. The southern terminus was es-
times. as a “practical idealist,” he promoted both tablished at Mt. Oglethorpe, in Geor-
Trail-building and hiking as essential keys gia, and the northern terminus at Katah-
Conflicting Visions Surface to instilling individual resourcefulness din, in Maine. By 1934, clubs reported
M and protection of the footpath itself completion of 1,937 miles of Trail. The
acKaye at this time considered against development. But, he had no plans next year, the Maine Appalachian Trail
the Trail firmly established to build a wilderness utopia. Club was formed, with heavy PATC in-
and the following year wrote In a 1930 article in Mountain Maga- volvement and inspiration (including
for The Scientific Monthly what he called zine, Avery—who was as prolific a writer Avery as its overseer of trails from 1935
a sequel to his seminal 1921 article. It was as he was an industrious Trail scout—be- to 1949 and its president from 1949 un-
the answer, he said, to “the question so gan flatly: “The Appalachian Trail, as con- til his death in 1952). Members trav- 1925
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2000
APPALACHIANTRAIL
MAINETOGEORGIA The Era of Trail-Building . . .
eled from Washington, D.C., in the sum- to fight it, opting to let CCC crews
mer months for work trips. relocate the A.T. in the new na-
Also in 1935, with ATC help and the tional park (largely at government
encouragement of state and federal for- expense, as it turned out, without
est services, the Appalachian Trail—first a break in the route).
in Maine, later in southern states—be- Others in both organizations
came an item on the agenda of the De- wanted to fight the Skyline Drive
pression-era Civilian Conservation Corps. proposal. They said it intruded on
Soon, involvement with those federal pro- the wilderness and threatened the
grams would make evident the latent Trail as it was conceived. Most op-
Avery–MacKaye conflict. ponents seemed to be in Mac-
The immediate point of contention Kaye’s circle of associates, in-
was the government’s plan to construct the cluding Raymond Torrey in New
Skyline Drive through Virginia—a Depres- York (still writing for New York
sion-era make-work project essentially City newspapers), Harvey Broome
right on top of the Appalachian Trail that in Tennessee, and Harold C.
PATC had scouted and built in the previ- Anderson at PATC. Broome’s
ous seven years. Avery and other PATC and club, the Smoky Mountains Hik-
ATC leaders—if not a majority, certainly ing Club, and the Appalachian
a controlling faction—felt they needed gov- Mountain Club (AMC), then the
ernment allies. Government agencies had largest of the clubs in the Confer-
been involved with the A.T. project virtu- ence confederation, took positions
ally from its start, and it was becoming against the roadway’s construc-
clear that, to build a connected Trail, gov- tion.
ernment help was needed to further the In an article AMC asked him
values of the Trail as a whole for the long- to write for its Appalachia maga-
term future. They also perceived that the zine and then reprinted for wider
backers of this scenic highway had more distribution, “Flankine vs. Sky-
political clout than they. They chose not line,” MacKaye strongly attacked
OFF THE TRAIL: THE THIRTIES
• The decade, worldwide, embraces the worst economic, social, and political debacles in Western memory. The media embraces
small-town American life and good, clean living.
• Radio gives us Kate Smith, Edgar Bergen, Jack Benny, W.C. Fields, “Amos ’n’ Andy,” “War of the Worlds”—a virtual escape for
the majority outside the 40 million poor and the 12 million unemployed.
• John Steinbeck is employed, taking a dog census on the Monterey Peninsula, and goes on to publish The Grapes of Wrath.
• The Empire State Building opens for business. King Kong is created to climb it.
• LIFE begins—as do Tina Turner, Rudolph Nureyev, Xerox-ing, Madelaine Albright, John Updike, Mikhail Gorbachev, Neil Armstrong,
Boris Yeltsin, Social Security, Brigitte Bardot, the universal five-day work week, and the minimum wage at two bits an hour.
• Life ends for Thomas Edison, Sigmund Freud, Will Rogers, John D. Rockefeller, Marconi, Pavlov, the Hindenburg, presumably
Amelia Earhart, Arthur Conan Doyle, Prohibition, and Huey Long. George Gershwin writes “Porgy and Bess” at thirty-seven and
dies at thirty-nine. Mr. Smith goes to Washington, Dorothy Gale walks to Oz, and Shirley Temple dances with Mr. Bojangles.
• Albert Einstein leaves Germany and warns of “The Bomb,” and Edward Teller leaves to eventually press harder than anyone to
build it. The average lawyer’s salary is one quarter the price on John Dillinger’s head.
• Edward VIII steps off the throne, Howard Hughes flies around the world, Bonnie and Clyde drive into a lead hailstorm, Jesse
Owen runs Hitler’s ideas into the ground at the Olympics, and Gandhi sits down in India.
• After Nazi troops pour into Poland in September 1939, sixty-one nations—eighty percent of the world—draft 110 million people
to fight six years in world war, twenty years after “the war to end all wars.”
1925
10
2000