Appalachian Trail Museum News

The Appalachian Trail Museum will be needing volunteer docents to help staff the facility during it's opening this summer! If you are interested, For information about the docent program beginning January 10, 2010, click here

A new journal from 1974 has been added to the journal project. We were contacted by Johnathan Clement, who hiked from Georgia to Maine in 1974, and offered the opportunity to put his story online for all to view. Originally slated to appear in book form with several other earlier journals as a continuation of the two volume Appalachian Trail Journal set published earlier, (but now out of print) the Appalachian Trail Museum Society is proud to offer his journal for your reading pleasure - only on this website. If you have a journal that your would like to submit, please email trailtales@atmuseum.org and please include "journal submission" in the subject line.

A major developement has come about in the past few months that is very exciting for museum society! We have procured a new home for the museum! More information can be found by clicking here.

The implementation of the ATC photo database made of all the polaroids taken as hikers/visitors pass through Harpers Ferry and visited the ATC headquarters is almost finished. If you know that your photo is in their collection and would like to give permission to use your provided current information so others might be able to contact you, please copy the following form (CLICK HERE) and either send to the address provided on the form by email or regular mail. By giving your consent, your information will be immediately available upon implementation which is scheduled for this fall (2009). A pdf version is available by clicking here.

A new addition to the ATMS site is the first ever online presentation of the 1983 Don Nelan Shelter Log book! Read all the hiker entries contained in this early vintage shelter register and perhaps find a friend.

If you have a log book, guide or other trail memorabilia that you would like to donate to the museum, please contact us.

At the Spring 2009 meeting we raffled off the set of Rodale Press Books and Gray Jay was the winner.

The A.T. Museum Society needs volunteers to help scan approx. 12,600 Polaroids of hikers taken at the ATC since 1979. Volunteers will receive free housing at the Town's Inn (www.thetownsinn.com) next door to the outfitters in the historic area of Harpers Ferry in exchange for help with barcoding, scanning and moving the original photographs into better quality albums. We've already finished the first 4000 and hope to get the rest of them scanned this spring. The plan is to have as many of the scans as possible available in a searchable database on the web. This project is being funded by the Quimby Family Foundation (www.quimbyfamilyfoundation.org), the folks who brought you Burt's Bees. Please contact me, Terry Harley-Wilson (Toccoah, 2001), Vice President, ATMS if you're interested in volunteering (tharleyw@yahoo.com).

A general review of activities and accomplishments for 2008 can be seen on the annual report.

We had a good turnout (close to 40 people) at the Celebration to Mark the 60th Anniversary of First Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike and a nice ceremony with many people adding their memories of Earl. The whole day was a fitting tribute to Earl Shaffer. (Click here for a recent article about the project)
Click on the following link for more information about the Earl Shaffer shelter project: http://www.luxenberg.info/shaffer-shelter/shaffer-shelter-scrapbook-directory.html

Bruce Dunlavy worked nonstop all day on the critical job of dismantling the shelter, marking it and getting it stored in the barn at Scott Farm. In the dismantling, thanks to Bruce's careful job and Earl's craftmanship, there was remarkably little damage.

Although we could have used a few more people, we still got the shelter moved as a result of people pitching in, carrying loads that were too heavy and making multiple trips. The day was very long and tiring. Thanks to Karen Balaban and Jeff Buehler for helping to organize this and doing lots of things to make it successful. They and Pete Flezar also provided pickup trucks for moving the shelter. Karen also provided lemonade.

Several groups were represented at the ceremony including Earl Shaffer Foundation (Dave), SATC (Karen) ATC (Steve and Laurie), NPS (via Steve), BMECC (Martyann), ALDHA (Chuck Wood, DVAMC, CVATC, MCM and ATMS.

Noel traveled from Florida, supervised the parking areas, made the signs and the shelter guestbook and did a lot of the early planning.

Linguini took some high quality photos and designed the website http://sites.google.com/a/cduane.net/shaffershelter/ which features images of the event, and Trail Angel Mary shot some video accessible on youtube.com at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czTa5fh7cHw

Eli Luxenberg filmed the ceremony and much of the work in a longer video, which will become part of the collection of the museum along with the shelter itself.

Bag of Tricks brought a hammer that used to belong to Earl Shaffer himself and used it to help dismantle the shelter.

Many thanks to the many people who participated in the review process including Don Owen and Pam Underhill.

Karen Lutz and the whole Boiling Springs office, including Michelle and John, were very helpful. We especially were grateful for letting us store the shelter temporarily at the Scott Farm.

There were several good newspaper articles on the event including ones by Rita Floriani in the Reading Eagle, Chris Courogen in the Harrisburg Patriot-News, Candy Thomson in the Baltimore Sun (see below) and the York Record. The ABC affiliate in Harrisburg ran a segment at 6 and 11 p.m. on August 2.

The three-sided primitive shelter is the last remaining one built by Earl that is intact and still being used by overnight hikers.

(click image to see larger)

The shelter is being preserved by the Appalachian Trail Museum Society and will be the featured artifact in its collection. The ceremony was held in conjunction with the club maintaining the shelter, the Susquehanna Appalachian Trail Club. Also sponsoring the event was the Earl Shaffer Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving his writings, poems and songs.

The following article appeared at the end of the outdoor column in the Baltimore Sun:

Piecing it together

Made of 55 logs and tucked in a hillside along the Appalachian Trail, the three-sided shelter doesn't look like much, but it's a piece of hiking history

It was built about 40years ago by Earl Shaffer, a York County, Pa., native who, in 1948, became the first person to hike the length of the nation's most famous trail, from Georgia to Maine.

He did it twice more, the last time in 1998, at the age of 79. He died of cancer four years later.

Weather, time and vandals have taken their toll on the hut, the last remaining shelter built by Shaffer. Trail buffs and amateur historians want to save it.

So on Saturday, after a ceremony commemorating Shaffer's first 2,175-mile walk in the woods, hikers will carefully dismantle the structure and carry the pieces 3 miles to Route225, a bit north of Harrisburg, where it will be trucked to storage.

Someday, it will be reassembled at the Appalachian Trail Museum, the dream of LarryLuxenberg, a 1980 thru-hiker.

Two years ago, Luxenberg began lobbying federal and Pennsylvania officials about the need to save the fragile structure.

"We said we'd provide a good home for it. It was a good match," he said. "We would consider this our most significant museum piece."

When approval came just before July4, Luxenberg was ready to move. But now he needs a permanent home for his growing collection of hiking artifacts.

The perfect spot is a 150-year-old grist mill at Pine Grove Furnace State Park, an hour's drive north of Baltimore near Gettysburg and close to the midpoint of the Appalachian Trail. The park gets 500,000 visitors annually, and every thru-hiker passes within 20feet of the mill. The small general store is the scene of an AT rite of passage, the Half-Gallon Club, in which ravenous long-distance hikers try to consume a half-gallon of ice cream in one sitting. (Prize: a small wooden spoon.)

"We've been working with the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club to draft a plan for renovating the mill. It's conceivable we could be open next year," Luxenberg says. "The project has gone a lot slower than I'd have liked, but it's moving now. We're getting critical mass."
By Candy Thomson

The Appalachian Trail Museum Society has embarked on a fund-raising campaign to establish a home for trail memories. The Society has located a beautiful and historic old mill building in Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania, near the geographic midpoint of the trail, and is in talks to obtain the building for our exhibits and collections. The society has expressed its interest in using the Old Mill building at Pine Grove Furnace State Park for the Appalachian Trail Museum. The building is near the geographic mid-point of the trail and would be easily accessible to members of the Appalachian Trail community as well as visitors actually hiking on the Trail, plus additional visitors from Central Pennsylvania and beyond.

We have consulted with Bryan Van Sweden of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission about the feasibility of the project and plan to continue seeking his advice and help on obtaining funding for renovations to the structure.

The Museum Society will work closely with the park to tailor the exhibits and programming to local needs. Possibilities for exhibits in addition to our primary A.T. exhibits include providing interpretation of the historic Old Mill Building itself, the park, the A.T. Conservancy (its regional office is located in Boiling Springs, Pa.) and the Pennsylvania Forest Fire Museum Association

The A.T. and the A.T. community are unique international treasures and we want to preserve their artifacts and spread their stories to new generations of hikers and environmentalists. We want a place that will introduce a generation of computer-tied children to the glories of the trail and the outdoors. Please support our efforts by becoming a member of the society, volunteering your efforts, making a financial contribution or donating items for our upcoming raffle and silent auction at the Gathering in October. Thanks for your help in bringing to life a museum worthy of the A.T. community.

We've finally signed the Memo of Understanding with the NCTC, so we now have access to their storage space.

An article appearing in the Charlestown Herald Monday December 3, 2007 about the new exhibit:

Its rubber tire is cracked and dry, but the measuring wheel Myron H. Avery used to plot out the Appalachian Trail stands as a testament to his work.
In another display case next to the measuring wheel is a typewriter once owned by Benton MacKaye, a forester and planner who first wrote about the idea for the hiking trail.

Laurie Potteiger, information services manager for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, stands next to a measuring wheel that was used to lay out the Appalachian Trail. (Photo credit: Dave McMillion / Bureau reporter)

MacKaye discussed the idea for the trail in an article that appeared in the Journal of American Institute of Architects in 1921.

Then MacKaye organized the first Appalachian Trail conference in 1925, in Washington, D.C., to bring hikers, foresters and public officials together on the idea.

The items are in a museum at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy at 799 Washington St. in Harpers Ferry.

The Appalachian Trail is a popular 2,175-mile hiking path from Maine to Georgia. The idea for the museum was established to help tell the trail's history.

Many pioneering, dedicated hikers of the Appalachian Trail are getting "on in years" and they still have original gear and priceless memorabilia, according to the Web site www.atmuseum.org.

The Appalachian Trail Museum Society was established to start the museum and the group wanted to collect items that tells the history of the trail.
The museum was dedicated last June and many hikers have enjoyed being able to get a firsthand look at trail artifacts and history, officials said.
"This is something they've dreamed of for years," said Terri McLellan, a volunteer in the Appalachian Trail Conservancy office.

The Appalachian Trail Society sees the museum as a project that will take a series of steps over time, and the organization can use volunteers to help with the exhibit and collect artifacts, the Web site said.

Avery, whose career was in admiralty law, was instrumental in forming hiking clubs that worked on construction of the trail, according to the museum.
Avery's measuring wheel was an important tool in early scouting trips for the trail and gathering information for guide books, according to the museum.
Regarding MacKaye, the museum features photos of the planner with his family. It also shows photos at the time of forest devastation due to logging, and MacKaye saw the trail as a way to preserve picturesque lands in the eastern U.S., according to Laurie Potteiger, information services manager for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.

To help spread the word about the new offerings at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, an open house was held there Saturday, which more than 125 attended, Potteiger said.

Appalachian Trail Conservancy officials thought it would be a good time to hold the open house, since many people are visiting Harpers Ferry for the holidays, Potteiger said.

Other new offerings at the conservancy office include an expanded lounge for hikers and volunteers. Harpers Ferry is about the midpoint for the Appalachian Trail, and hikers sometimes stay in the Harpers Ferry area for a couple days while hiking, Potteiger said.

A computer is available to hikers in the lounge for them to e-mail family members and friends or to post photographs about their hike, Potteiger said. And there is a refrigerator offering sodas and organic drinks.

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy is a nonprofit organization that provides coordination, training and leadership to about 6,000 volunteers that look after the trail.

Overseeing the trail has become a more involved effort as volunteers not only maintain the trail, but keep tabs on endangered species and monitor water quality, Potteiger said.

By DAVE McMILLION HARPERS FERRY, W.Va

Submit your photos now!
A new photo contest is in progress to select suitable images to be used in the next brochure printing and on this website as well. Click here to view the details.

A Podcast service relating to the hiking community is available now at www.trailcast.com. Recently they did an interview with Kent and Terry Wilson about the Appalachian Trail Museum that can be downloaded and played on either your computer or I-pod. It is program number 6 and gives a good description of what the museum society is trying to accomplish and what has been up to the time of broadcast.

New brochures to inform and solicit membership have been designed and printed as of the middle of October 2007! They will be distributed at the ATC, Campmore stores, LL Bean, etc., where we will hopefully attract new membership. The brochure includes a membership application and is filled with great historic photos of early AT enthusiasts, photos of Katahdin, and other scenes on the AT. Write to Larry, or send an email to the address below and one will be sent to you.

The Appalachian Trail Museum Society newsletter has a newsletter. The files may take a while to download on dialup, please be patient. Available issues:

Vol. 1 Issue 3
Vol. 1 Issue 2
Vol. 1 Issue 1

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