How does the Appalachian Trail — a 2,193 mile long, 14 state long hiking footpath become
an institution?
Last week, I got a chance to visit, and I was struck by that question. How does something
like this actually happen? How do you get such an epic unique project that enchants
so many people, that lasts so many years, and that runs across so many different types
of boundaries?
The answer is surprisingly simple. It's actually in a crucial letter, but it is also in the
larger themes that that letter addresses. And those themes teach a bigger lesson about
how big wild ideas can go from imagination to reality.
Benton Mackaye wrote that letter. Here he is in the Smokey Mountains in 1933. He was
a Forestry teacher at Harvard and worked in Federal agencies, but it is this 1921 letter,
an AT manifesto, that solidified his legacy.
In the wake of personal tragedy, Makaye’s wife had committed suicide earlier that year,
and he was desperate for transformative ideas, both in that personal realm and in the political
and social realms too. But that wild dream to find a new approach to the problem of living
wasn't over ambitious.
Mackaye’s letter actually diagnoses,the three bigger forces that made his idea more
than just a hot take, but the impetus behind a movement.
I feel like it would be really good for my views if I were eaten by a bear right now.
Please like, and subscribe if you want to see how well the bear digested my body.
If it’s not obvious I've hiked and camped some, but you know, I'm a city guy who comes
out to hike and then goes back back into the urban landscape. I saw a garden snake at one
point — “Snake!” — and freaked out.
But that tension, urbanization, is the first big trend that helped be the AT become real.
Mackaye knew that the American rural population had dipped below the urban for the first time
in the 1920s. This was a big deal.
This National Parks map shows it too. See how from 1890 to 1930, urban population grew
as a share of total population in the Southeast? It happened even more elsewhere. Mackaye was
hoping that the AT could inspire a countermigration from city to country. That didn't happen.
But at the very least the AT was part of a trend for Americans who feared the transformation
of American life from rural to urban.
That made the idea of Mackaye’s trail, as seen in this 1925 proposed map, all the more
appealing. The Appalachian trail logo. One of the coolest logos that I've ever seen for
anything. Yeah.
It's great branding, but it was foresight to brand the trail at all. The second big
reason for the Appalachian Trail is competition with the West.
Mackaye wrote that most national playgrounds were located in the West, where Uncle Sam's
public lands were located. Yellowstone started back in 1870, to Yosemite in 1890. The West
took an early lead in federal lands, which you can still see in maps today.
The East coast needed to catch up, and would take big swings to do it.
Let me show you something. Editor Phil? Okay. So I actually got this postcard action at
Shenandoah that perfectly shows what I'm talking about. It's about Shenandoah National Park,
not the Appalachian trail, but it says “Eastern park in the Western tradition.”
That was good. I feel like we could have a thing here.
Like, like Phill down here, talking with editor Phil.
No. Little reparte?
No. Like just a little banter—
No. I just think it would be kind of a
That’s stupid. Okay, wait, if you're editing me, who's editing
this conversation between us? Circle glasses Phil.
What do you mean circle classes Phil? The one true Phil who controls us all.
Cut. Um, anyway, the Appalachian trail was a way
for the East coast to play catch-up with the West, but perhaps most importantly, the trail
wasn't just a figment of Mackaye’s imagination.
You know, the National Park motto is leave only footprints, take only vlog style footage
of yourself, talking about the National Parks.
This wasn't a big, random idea. It was an idea based around an existing network. Mackaye
knew the pieces were in place through smaller regional trails, from Vermont, to New Hampshire,
down to the South. Hiking was an emerging trend along with trail making. This big article
shows the celebrations around an eight and a half mile path.
This 1907 guide was an early example of trail making in practice. And it included maps like
these. Mackaye wanted to build a mini society along the trail with farming colonies and
more. His ideas didn't all stick, but the trail itself, while a lot of work, was an
extension of a trend, not some total invention. That carried it through federal land acquisition,
work by the 1930s government jobs program, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and its continuation
to the present route today.
If you’ve hiked, you know the blaze is a marker, it says you're on a trail. It's a
little line that basically says you're on the right track.
For Benton Mackaye the whole trail was a blaze. For him, after the death of his wife, and
for society, in the wake of war and in the smog of industrialization.
I've gone from 1921 to the present and I've skipped over a lot of hard work, like, literal
hard work and also laws and a ton of other changes. But the fundamentals expressed in
that 1921letter are the things that made Appalachian trail a reality, that made it happen. It wasn't
just a marker in wilderness. But a marker in a period of time. And a blaze, that was
a statement for a group of true believers, who wanted to show where they thought society
should go.
All right, that's it for this one. Just want to clear up that as a Southerner, I say “Appalachian,”
but if you say “Appalachian,” you're still welcome here. Uh, this channel is where I
post personal videos and history, videos and stuff like that. Your subscription or liking
this video, is actually super helpful cause it's really early in the life of this channel.
So I'd appreciate it. I've got sources and more info in the description below, and otherwise
I'll see you in the next one. All right. Thanks for watching. Okay.