to local people today the Mohawk trail
means a way of getting from here to there
officially the Mohawk trail runs from Williamstown basically from the New York
border
to are inch
the trail started out as a yeah have an Indian Trail
probably not really the Mohawk so much as the Mohicans
a because this was their territory the mohawks for over in the Mohawk River in
the other side of the Hudson
the good government of North Adams and
1912 so contacted the statement said please
can't we have some kind of an improved highway states that okay it's gonna be a
major engineering feats
comparable almost to the to the music tunnel but we'll do it
and it opens in 1949
mind the trail was first approved by the state it was in
it was still an adventure it wasn't paved it was simply a gravel road
my wasn't plowed in the winter good citizens of Florida
shovel it off neither the state nor the North Adams when it started really
thought of this
as any kind of historical Road a prominent
North Adams businessman who owned a the hotel
his name was CQ richman said you know let's
celebrate the opening at this Road by having a big pageant and it played to
tens of thousands of people I had passed to the hundreds
the pageant and its popularity
and initiated the idea that became
what was essentially a linear Indian themed
Park and all the businesses that grew up along the trail
they are picked it up and said well we're going to call this the Mohawk
trail in
it was a very enthusiastic place to be
look at that early postcards have the traffic on the trail I mean it was
textron particular in the leases
in 1954 the proprietors have a shop over and
Charlemont India fact put up a 28-foot
hi Indian plain style car and that he
soon gave their name to their shopping Indian shop people really excited about
less than it seemed more immediate to think about the Western Indians then
eastern Indian so
that big twenty 8-foot-tall Indian
was really not so much a mistake as an attempt to
capitalize on what was more exciting time for example the
hail the sunrise statue which is in Charlemont
was put up by the ancient order redman
which was a fraternal organization and they put up with a statue
honoring a mohawk Indian and they own little bit of irony there is that
they themselves were a out a white male
organization so how to had a mohawk Indian or make an Indian
where planes in the income up to them and said with would like to join your
organization
they would have been allowed so
they the Indian message is a mixed message but the
message about automobile days
pure enjoyment an adventure does partial breaking down all the time
that i think is
real message this centennial
this hairpin turn this was put in an order to reduce
the angle of climbing there's a restaurant the Golden Eagle there
the elbow oddly curve that
hasher and its share accidents as
trucks came down the hill here and can't quite picture
and they actually kinda moved it back a little bit in order to
protected that was one other properties that originally was built by a fellow
named Charles Kennedy
who also built the shops and visually appealing tower
up at Wiccan summer the top and Kennedy has been a a
reporter photographer actually for the North Adams transcript
there are moments on the trail
and some of them are perhaps painful
if you go over the trail from North Adams and head down the other side they
say
ominously named dead man's curve and there have been some fatalities there
where they where the road takes a sharp turn this a steep bank
and then a course we can't forget much work recently Hurricane Irene
which wiped out a the whole side
the trail going down from from florida mountain down into
into child o mine and it amazes me
to look at that now and see that they've had to start
really all over him
with the film you know creating a ledge where Nana let
not allege and the phone rings system
for a little while after Henry Ford had made
Model T available to most people
this was a wonderful ru and people drove
not so much to get somewhere as to
experience the trip and the mass Turnpike
drew most up the traffic and with it the business
offer this road
unfortunately the interstate highway system has made us all
eager to get where we're going with no stops in between
I think we're were missing out on line