The Building of the Appalachian Trail
How Benton MacKaye and Myron Avery Built the Great American Trail
Mar 30, 2009
The 1920 census was the first in which less than half of the population lived in rural areas. Cities were growing and attracting laborers from farms and ranches to factories and offices. As Angel Kwolek-Folland wrote in Engendering Business, Americans began to worry that the rugged masculinity of the farmer and cowboy was disappearing; that men were no longer tough enough to cope with uncontrolled wilderness situations. The general feeling was that an important part of American masculinity had gotten lost. People were less sure how to regain it.
Benton MacKaye and the Origin of the Appalachian Trail
Benton MacKaye (rhymes with eye) was an eclectic thinker whose degree in Forestry led him to work for the newly created United States Forest Service. In 1921, he laid out the idea of a trail along Appalachian Mountains in his article “An Appalachian Trail: A Project in Regional Planning.” MacKaye saw the trail as a way to renew the health and vigor of Americans. Since most of the nation’s major urban areas were within a short distance of the Appalachians, city dwellers would be able to reach them easily and cheaply, an advantage not offered by western parks like Yosemite or Yellowstone.
MacKaye’s trail would stretch from Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina to Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. He envisioned campgrounds positioned an easy days walk from one another. Middle-class Americans could spend their leisure time enjoying “health and recuperation.” Unfortunately, MacKaye was more of a dreamer than a doer. His idea would have died if he had been responsible for getting the necessary right-of-ways, building and linking the trails, and finding a way to maintain them.
Myron Avery, The Man who Built the Trail
The trail needed a man who could get things done and Myron Avery was that man. A Maine native who worked as a lawyer in Washington, D.C., Avery was a devoted outdoorsman who loved the idea of a long mountain footpath. The driven lawyer had the ability to plan a viable route for the trail and organize volunteer labor to build and maintain it. Although MacKaye’s vision and Avery’s managerial skills were both needed for the trail’s completion, the two often disagreed. Avery believed the best hiking in the country was in Maine and wanted to include his favorite places by extending the trail to Mt. Katahdin. He also extended the trail south, into Georgia.
Avery was not only an organizer; he was a hands-on worker who is credited by the Appalachian Trail Conservancy with being the first man to walk every step of the Appalachian Trail. In the late 1920s, he marked the trail on existing paths and blazed new routes to link sections together. In 1931, after a fight with Avery over the trail’s route through Shenandoah National Park, Benton MacKaye left the Appalachians to pursue other interests. Myron Avery continued working and by 1937 had completed a 2000 mile long trail from Mt. Oglethorpe, Georgia to Mt. Katahdin, Maine.
Legacies
In his home state of Maine, Myron Avery is still remembered. A mountain along the Appalachian Trail was renamed in his honor and there are historic markers around the state commemorating his achievements. Outside of Maine though, Benton MacKaye often gets the largest share of the credit for their work. MacKaye outlived Avery by 23 years and remained active in wilderness causes. Because of his longevity, he became the man most associated with the Appalachian Trail’s founding, but it took both the dreamer and the manager to complete the project.
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