History of the Appalachian Trail

Hiking as a leisure activity is a relatively recent development.  For much of human history, the overwhelming majority of travel occurred by walking.  Until the nineteenth century the only other modes of transport available were beasts of burden or boats and ships, and these were both limited to a select group of the population.  Most people walked everywhere they went for their entire lives. The idea of taking a hike through the woods was not an appealing one. It wasn’t often you heard one peasant say to another, “Hey, let’s walk across the valley to the mountains, and then walk up and down the mountains for fun.”  Walking was a necessity of life, not an opportunity for leisure.  One of the few accounts from antiquity of hiking for leisure can be found in Petrarch’s “Ascent of Mount Ventoux” in 1336 (full text can be found here: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/petrarch-ventoux.asp).  This was a rare occurrence indeed for the time period, and few other accounts of recreational hiking and trekking prior to the 1800s are to be found.

Perhaps the origin of hiking in America can be traced to a lecture titled “Walking” by Henry David Thoreau from 1851. The lecture became one of Thoreau’s most famous and beloved essays (full text here: http://thoreau.eserver.org/walking.html).  In the essay, Thoreau encourages the audience to understand the relationship between humanity and nature. He sees walking as an avenue through which humans can recognize and nurture this existence with the natural world.  His opening remarks fully encapsulate this idea: 

"I wish to speak a word for nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and Culture merely civil, — to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society." (Thoreau) 

Today this might not seem to be that revolutionary a concept, and indeed it probably is not, but at the time it was quite a novel way of thinking that few people held, and one that had not been articulated in such a forthright way. Most people viewed nature as an unlimited resource to be used, and little else. By the twentieth century, the heartbeat of America was changing.  The frontier was largely gone, the expanse from coast to coast was covered by railroad lines, automobiles roared up and down newly constructed roads, electricity and telephones were becoming commonplace.  At the same time, cities continued to expand from a steady flow of newcomers from rural areas along with the so-called “huddled masses” from across the sea. The 1920 United States Census was the first time the country’s urban population outnumbered rural residents. The country was leaving the wilderness behind for the city. Yet at the same time a small but growing movement for conservation was afoot. 

Voices from the prior century like Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and John Muir had called for a harmonious and responsible relationship between man and nature. That call had not gone totally unheeded. Yellowstone National Park had been established in 1872, and Yosemite and others had followed. President Theodore Roosevelt had championed the cause and had set aside millions of acres of public lands for preservation and recreation purposes. The National Park Service was created in 1916 to administer the growing number of public land areas.  Conservationism was alive and growing, but many were concerned that not enough was being done.  One of those concerned was a Washington bureaucrat named Benton MacKaye.

Benton MacKaye.  By Mackaye-avery.jpg: Unknown derivative work: Yllosubmarine (Mackaye-avery.jpg) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Benton MacKaye was a native of Connecticut and a Harvard graduate working for the United States Forest Service.  He was a lover of the outdoors and had hiked and backpacked in the mountains of New England on many occasions. In 1921, MacKaye planted the seed for the Appalachian Trail with the publication of an ambitious and extraordinary article titled, “ An Appalachian Trail: A Project in Regional Planning.” In the article (full text here: http://www.fred.net/kathy/at/mackaye.html ), MacKaye lamented the growing industrialization and urbanization that was spreading the nation.  He applauded the growth of national parks and public lands, but he also expressed concern that the vast majority of these lands were in the western part of the country and inaccessible for most Americans.   

He set forth a remarkable idea for a walking trail to traverse the Appalachian Mountain chain from New England to Georgia, an area within close proximity to most residents of the eastern United States. He advocated that the trail project be built largely by local groups along the trail route, such as local hiking, scouting and nature groups that were growing in many areas around the time of the article’s publication. This idea of cooperation would later prove to be successful in completing the trail, and the same system is still in place for trail maintenance today.

MacKaye’s vision for the trail project encompassed four features: 

1. The Trail – It was to stretch from New England to Georgia along the ridgelines of the Appalachians.  Its main purpose was envisioned as a portal through which millions could escape to nature and seek relaxation and recreation.       
2. Shelter Camps – MacKaye advocated a series of facilities for eating and sleeping, roughly a day’s walk apart from each other and much in the spirit of Swiss chalets.  They were to be noncommercial and maintained by volunteers.       
3. Community Camps – These were to be small communities adjacent to the trail built around outdoor recreation opportunities.  As with the shelter camps, MacKaye was insistent that these camps be noncommercial in nature.  The camps would consist of small numbers of private residences, with great care taken to insure that they not grow too large. 
4. Food and Farm Camps – These were the most far reaching of the MacKaye essay. He called for these camps to be agrarian communes existing for the purpose of supplying resources such as food and firewood for the people using the trail, the shelters, and the communities. (MacKaye) 

The Appalachian Trail itself would come into being in much the way the article spelled out, through the cooperation of a number of local groups and efforts, along with some assistance from government agencies. A semblance of shelter camps along the trail also grew out of this effort, and shares many of the characteristics MacKaye called for. The ideas for the community camps and the food and farm camps proved to be too optimistic and perhaps too utopian to be practical, however. All in all, the vision that would become the Appalachian Trail set forth by Benton MacKaye was a remarkable one, and each person who has walked a single step on the AT owes a tip of the cap to him for providing the call to action needed to make it possible. 

In March of 1925, the Appalachian Trail Conference (the ATC, now officially the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, http://www.appalachiantrail.org/home ) was formed for the purpose of making the dream of the AT a reality. It was created to be a confederation of local groups whose goal was to create and then maintain the trail. By 1937, the creation of the trail was complete, and a continuous footpath existed from Georgia to Maine. While the credit for the vision of the AT belongs to MacKaye, the credit for making it a reality belongs to two early leaders of the ATC, Judge Arthur Perkins and Myron Avery. Perkins was the inspiring chairman of the ATC beginning in 1928. He led efforts to create the network of trailblazers – all volunteers -- that would cross the ridges and map out the course of the trail.  After Perkins’ death, Avery took the mantle and moved forward the ATC’s efforts and saw them through to completion. While MacKaye had created the spark, it was Perkins and Avery who added the fuel needed to blaze the AT. 

World War II and the postwar 1950s brought a number of pressures on the AT as the nation continued to grow and encroach towards the mountains. At this time, much of the land still crossed privately owned property. The increased trepidation about the trail’s future led the ATC and others to redouble their efforts in calling for government assistance. The process was not easy, but finally in 1968 the National Trails System Act (NTSA) was signed, and the AT was designated a national scenic trail. The NTSA, under the umbrella of the National Park Service, enabled a number of programs in cooperation with state and local governments to safeguard the future of the AT. The process was slow at times, but 99% of the trail now is on public lands. 

Another milestone for the AT came in 1984 when the National Park Service delegated responsibility for maintenance of the AT land corridor to the ATC through its volunteer network. The Park Service recognized that they could not feasibly offer the same level of service to the AT as the coalition of volunteer groups led by the ATC.  The same spirit of volunteerism and cooperation that created the trail is still in place today to keep the trail open and clear for all. To me, this is part of the beauty of the Appalachian Trail and part of what makes it such a shining example of American freedom. The AT truly is of the people, by the people, and for the people.