Larry Luxenberg, Museum Founder & President Everything related to the Appalachian Trail got overshadowed in late September when Hurricane Helene brought torrential rains to the mountains. Beloved trail towns were inundated and the trail itself had severe damage. For a time, one third of the trail, from Springer Mountain to Shenandoah was closed and use is still discouraged. Only a handful of times in the hundred-year history of the trail has a natural disaster affected the trail so much. The A.T. community will be tested during the lengthy recovery effort.
Events at the A.T. Museum, which completed its 15th season in 2024, were much less dramatic but we made progress in many areas. Still, as we take stock of the year, there is never a shortage of projects to complete before we start a new season in the spring.
One of the least understood but most important parts of the Museum is our collection. Museums must maintain a robust collection if they hope to mount new and important exhibits in future years. Items discarded now are lost forever and one never knows what story a curator will want to tell 50 or 100 years from now. Across all museums, about 2 to 3 percent of their collection is on exhibit at any one time. The rest is catalogued and stored for future use.
The A.T. Museum has upgraded its storage facilities many times and over the last decade has maintained space in Carlisle. We’ve doubled the Carlisle space in the last few years, and dedicated volunteers, led by Becky, Sandy and Jerry, have carefully catalogued and stored our widely varied collection. Under Becky’s leadership, we obtained a scanner and scanned our extensive trail register collection. The registers are available for viewing at the Museum. The registers are a great source of trail memories, culture and insight into the A.T. community and a valuable resource for academic researchers.
This year we grew our collection substantially. Tim Messerich, an A.T. Museum founder, has for thirty years painstakingly built one of the most extensive private collections of A.T. Guidebooks. In the spring I visited Tim and we spent several hours loading his collection into my car to donate. A complete current A.T. Guidebook set numbers only eleven books, but over the years there have been many permutations and editions. By one estimate, more than 500 different guidebooks have been issued by ATC and the trail clubs since the 1930s. It’s not a straightforward task to distinguish between the various editions but under the unique A.T. Museum cataloguing system, Head Librarian Kurt Bodling estimates that the Museum library has more than 200 different editions.
Over the years, at various trail events I’ve collected hundreds of items and it’s a rare month that a new package doesn’t arrive at my house. These collection efforts earned me the trail name “Pack Rat” from my friend Noel “The Singing Horseman” DeCavalcante. Despite continual deposits at the Museum, I had accumulated many items at my house. After several years of threatening, I finally rented a box truck, loaded more than 100 boxes, and on Juneteenth, drove to the storage area. My wife, Frieda, knowing that I had no experience driving a truck, volunteered to accompany me. At the storage area, Manager Julie Queen expertly maneuvered the truck to the loading dock and a half dozen volunteers quickly unloaded the truck and brought the contents to our storage area for cataloguing. Frieda and I made it home safely but Frieda wisely decreed that my truck driving days, brief as they were, are over.
Later in the summer, Frieda and I visited Hot Springs, N.C., and spent time with trail icon Elmer Hall, proprietor of the Sunnybank Inn and fellow 1980 thru-hikers Jan Coverdale and Lou Schroeder. Elmer came to the trail nearly 50 years ago and has spent most of that time in Hot Springs. We took many Sunnybank Inn items for the Museum collection and spent a few wonderful days in Hot Springs. It has been heartbreaking to hear about the devastation that came to town a month later.
Like anyone with stewardship of a historic building, the A.T. Museum deals with maintenance issues ranging from pumping out our septic tanks to roof leaks. This winter we replaced the Old Mill’s gutters to prevent water damage. In the fall a volunteer crew removed the rotten logs in our rampitheater, our outside seating area. We still face a major project, repointing the stones in the walls of the Old Mill.
Each year we try to add new exhibits and enhance existing ones. Our most exciting new exhibit in 2024 involved thru-hiker Gary Monk, who carried a hand clicker the length of the trail. By the end of the trail, he tallied more than 80,000 blazes. We’ll have the exhibit’s grand opening next year.
This year we inducted the 14th class into the Appalachian Trail Hall of Fame. Before the induction ceremony, we had a conversation with current and past inductees or their representatives. The 2024 class: Edward B. Ballard, a field coordinator for the National Park Service (NPS), who proposed a protected A.T. corridor; Arno Cammerer, third NPS director, who personally helped Myron Avery develop the initial A.T. route; Raymond Hunt, ATC chair, first data book editor and one heavily involved in land acquisition and A.T. management; and Ron Rosen, a fifty year A.T. volunteer, a leader in acquiring and protecting the Trail in Dutchess County, New York, including the difficult Nuclear Lake section. Brook Lenker, Executive of Keystone Trails Association, was MC.
The A.T. Museum continues to be involved in books and publications about the A.T. The Museum, under librarian Kurt Bodling, maintains a collection of 2,662 books, 241 guidebooks, 149 maps, 255 multimedia items such as CDs and DVDs, and 11 periodical titles numbering hundreds of individual issues. Typically, during the season, one serious researcher a month utilizes our collection. Among these have been Washington Post Reporter Lizzie Johnson, who wrote a front-page article on changes in A.T. trail length; Professor Mills Kelly of George Mason University, who was working on several books as well as articles and podcasts; Brian King, longtime ATC staffer and noted A.T. historian; and Ernesto Bastos Viveiros de Castro, a Brazilian park manager working on a doctoral thesis.
This year, former Museum Manager and board member Joe Harold published a thriller taking place on the A.T., Hell and High Water: An Appalachian Trail Adventure. A notable addition to A.T. history, Welles Bruce Lobb, a Pennsylvania hiker, published He Was Too Young to Die, about Bob Brugmann, who drowned on the A.T. in 1973 in Clarendon Gorge, Vermont. New board member Ed Riggs continues to write a hiking column for the Gettysburg Times, one of the few hiking columns in any newspaper.
This year we lost two long-time board members and added four new members. Noel “the Singing Horseman” DeCavalcante, passed away this summer after 26 years involvement with the Museum. Despite his illness, Noel continued serving on the Hall of Fame Committee and did general Museum work until the end. Ron Bungay retired from the board after many years of service. Ron led our construction crew and every area of the Old Mill and some of Ironmasters reflect his talent and hard work. Our four new board members were all active volunteers for years before joining the board. The four are: Judy Bennett, Jennifer Boag, Ed Riggs and Ed Schoenberger.
Robert “Red Wolf o’ da Smoky’s” Croyle continues to put out his monthly electronic newsletter filled with pictures and news about the A.T. Museum and the A.T. He consistently comes up with beautiful pictures and stories that I see nowhere else. Red Wolf also maintains our extensive membership records and recruitment and is in charge of our critical fundraising efforts.
Programs continue to be a highlight of the Museum season. A fascinating one in May was the talk by the Netteberg Family. Daughter Juniper “The Beast” was not quite 5 years old when she finished the A.T. In some places she didn’t walk the trail; she ran. Parents Olen and Danae, doctors who worked in the African nation of Chad, tried hard to keep the children entertained on the Trail. Meanwhile, the children got so used to hiking every day that during rest days, they went stir crazy. A truly amazing family.
Another engaging talk was by Christine Reed on How to Become a Rugged Outdoorswoman. One of several talks in the shaded picnic grove on the Museum grounds, she led an inspiring discussion of how to achieve your goals. Along with the Earl Shaffer Foundation, the Museum sponsored a storytelling and culture festival in late June. Several dozen people talked about their trail experiences and memories of Earl Shaffer and shared a variety of moving stories. On behalf of the Foundation, David Donaldson presented the Museum with a letter from Earl’s pioneering 1948 thru hike. In the letter, the White Mountain crew recommended “dead heading” Earl through the New Hampshire huts – giving him free food and lodging.
On Labor Day Weekend, Greg Cook talked about the experience of being a docent at the Museum while I showed slides and talked about the history of the Museum. The Thru Hiker Class of 1974 had their 50th reunion at the Museum. The upsurge in thru-hiking started in 1973 so these were trail pioneers. The talented duo, Karen and Shannon, of Wander Out Yonder, recorded several talks and Museum events and made them available on their Youtube Channel or on the Museum website.
During the winter, Museum Manager Julie Queen took on the Hiker Yearbook along with founder Odie Norman. The Museum will continue Odie’s work of more than a decade to capture each year’s class of hikers that is both a normal Yearbook and not like any other Yearbook. In future years Julie will look for volunteers to help continue the project while staying true to its roots.
Visitors to the Museum continue to delight in our pollinator garden along the entrance path and inside the main ramp. The garden continues to fill in and plants meander where they will, according to our Chief Gardener, Ann Bodling. In late summer, the garden was filled with bees and butterflies of many species nectaring on everything that was blooming. The pipevine growing at the top of the ramp once again stole the show when the pipevine swallowtail caterpillars were eating and growing there. Ann plans to do her best to keep the vigorous vine from taking over the museum.
Because of a groundhog that has taken up residence near the museum, the variety of plants was somewhat diminished, though the garden was still full and beautiful by late summer. This year, because of the drought, plants were shorter than in some years. Ann finds it always interesting to watch how a garden responds to weather, insects and herbivores and continues to thrive. In the spring she plans to remove some of the individual dominant plants to make way for more variety, particularly earlier blooming species for summer visitors to enjoy and learn from.
The Museum has a diverse group of talented volunteers but what makes the enterprise thrive is our two managers, Julie Queen and Missy Shank.
Missy completed her fifth year as hostel keeper at Ironmasters Hostel. She began in January 2020, a month before the global Covid pandemic was declared, not an auspicious time to enter the hospitality industry. Missy has enhanced the hostel’s reputation among the trail community and established a welcoming atmosphere. In a sign of a return to normalcy, the Hostel even hosted a few weddings this year.
Julie brought years of A.T. involvement to the Museum manager’s position in 2021. She has broadened the Museum’s outreach to the trail community and fostered a close-knit group of engaged volunteers. The Museum manager deals with an extraordinary variety of tasks and Julie handles these tasks with grace and aplomb.
Julie continues to attract many talented volunteers and foster camaraderie with monthly volunteer picnics, hikes and other outings and new projects for volunteers. Our dedicated volunteers always delight in the varied and fascinating visitors who come to the Museum each year. The Museum is fortunate to have both leaders as well as our many dedicated volunteers and supporters.
We thank our many volunteers and our supporters throughout the trail community and we look forward to another great year in 2025. Next year marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. It’s a reminder that the A.T. is still relatively young but has had a remarkable impact around the world.
For those in a position to support the Museum’s continued growth and operations, we appreciate any financial contribution. To contribute, please follow THIS LINK or CLICK HERE for our form to print and send in. use the Membership / Donation FORM. The FORM details the listing levels on the permanent June 2027 Museum plaque. All contributions through December 31, 2026, are added together to give a donor their plaque listing level. Your support makes the Museum the success we all enjoy!
Sincerely,
Larry Luxenberg Museum President, www.atmuseum.org or www.appalachiantrail.museum
Contact info:
Julie Queen, Museum Manager, 717-486-8126, [email protected] or [email protected]
Missy Shank, Ironmasters Manager, 717-486-4108, [email protected]
Robert “Red Wolf o’da Smoky’s” Croyle, Museum Membership Secretary,
[email protected]
Events at the A.T. Museum, which completed its 15th season in 2024, were much less dramatic but we made progress in many areas. Still, as we take stock of the year, there is never a shortage of projects to complete before we start a new season in the spring.
One of the least understood but most important parts of the Museum is our collection. Museums must maintain a robust collection if they hope to mount new and important exhibits in future years. Items discarded now are lost forever and one never knows what story a curator will want to tell 50 or 100 years from now. Across all museums, about 2 to 3 percent of their collection is on exhibit at any one time. The rest is catalogued and stored for future use.
The A.T. Museum has upgraded its storage facilities many times and over the last decade has maintained space in Carlisle. We’ve doubled the Carlisle space in the last few years, and dedicated volunteers, led by Becky, Sandy and Jerry, have carefully catalogued and stored our widely varied collection. Under Becky’s leadership, we obtained a scanner and scanned our extensive trail register collection. The registers are available for viewing at the Museum. The registers are a great source of trail memories, culture and insight into the A.T. community and a valuable resource for academic researchers.
This year we grew our collection substantially. Tim Messerich, an A.T. Museum founder, has for thirty years painstakingly built one of the most extensive private collections of A.T. Guidebooks. In the spring I visited Tim and we spent several hours loading his collection into my car to donate. A complete current A.T. Guidebook set numbers only eleven books, but over the years there have been many permutations and editions. By one estimate, more than 500 different guidebooks have been issued by ATC and the trail clubs since the 1930s. It’s not a straightforward task to distinguish between the various editions but under the unique A.T. Museum cataloguing system, Head Librarian Kurt Bodling estimates that the Museum library has more than 200 different editions.
Over the years, at various trail events I’ve collected hundreds of items and it’s a rare month that a new package doesn’t arrive at my house. These collection efforts earned me the trail name “Pack Rat” from my friend Noel “The Singing Horseman” DeCavalcante. Despite continual deposits at the Museum, I had accumulated many items at my house. After several years of threatening, I finally rented a box truck, loaded more than 100 boxes, and on Juneteenth, drove to the storage area. My wife, Frieda, knowing that I had no experience driving a truck, volunteered to accompany me. At the storage area, Manager Julie Queen expertly maneuvered the truck to the loading dock and a half dozen volunteers quickly unloaded the truck and brought the contents to our storage area for cataloguing. Frieda and I made it home safely but Frieda wisely decreed that my truck driving days, brief as they were, are over.
Later in the summer, Frieda and I visited Hot Springs, N.C., and spent time with trail icon Elmer Hall, proprietor of the Sunnybank Inn and fellow 1980 thru-hikers Jan Coverdale and Lou Schroeder. Elmer came to the trail nearly 50 years ago and has spent most of that time in Hot Springs. We took many Sunnybank Inn items for the Museum collection and spent a few wonderful days in Hot Springs. It has been heartbreaking to hear about the devastation that came to town a month later.
Like anyone with stewardship of a historic building, the A.T. Museum deals with maintenance issues ranging from pumping out our septic tanks to roof leaks. This winter we replaced the Old Mill’s gutters to prevent water damage. In the fall a volunteer crew removed the rotten logs in our rampitheater, our outside seating area. We still face a major project, repointing the stones in the walls of the Old Mill.
Each year we try to add new exhibits and enhance existing ones. Our most exciting new exhibit in 2024 involved thru-hiker Gary Monk, who carried a hand clicker the length of the trail. By the end of the trail, he tallied more than 80,000 blazes. We’ll have the exhibit’s grand opening next year.
This year we inducted the 14th class into the Appalachian Trail Hall of Fame. Before the induction ceremony, we had a conversation with current and past inductees or their representatives. The 2024 class: Edward B. Ballard, a field coordinator for the National Park Service (NPS), who proposed a protected A.T. corridor; Arno Cammerer, third NPS director, who personally helped Myron Avery develop the initial A.T. route; Raymond Hunt, ATC chair, first data book editor and one heavily involved in land acquisition and A.T. management; and Ron Rosen, a fifty year A.T. volunteer, a leader in acquiring and protecting the Trail in Dutchess County, New York, including the difficult Nuclear Lake section. Brook Lenker, Executive of Keystone Trails Association, was MC.
The A.T. Museum continues to be involved in books and publications about the A.T. The Museum, under librarian Kurt Bodling, maintains a collection of 2,662 books, 241 guidebooks, 149 maps, 255 multimedia items such as CDs and DVDs, and 11 periodical titles numbering hundreds of individual issues. Typically, during the season, one serious researcher a month utilizes our collection. Among these have been Washington Post Reporter Lizzie Johnson, who wrote a front-page article on changes in A.T. trail length; Professor Mills Kelly of George Mason University, who was working on several books as well as articles and podcasts; Brian King, longtime ATC staffer and noted A.T. historian; and Ernesto Bastos Viveiros de Castro, a Brazilian park manager working on a doctoral thesis.
This year, former Museum Manager and board member Joe Harold published a thriller taking place on the A.T., Hell and High Water: An Appalachian Trail Adventure. A notable addition to A.T. history, Welles Bruce Lobb, a Pennsylvania hiker, published He Was Too Young to Die, about Bob Brugmann, who drowned on the A.T. in 1973 in Clarendon Gorge, Vermont. New board member Ed Riggs continues to write a hiking column for the Gettysburg Times, one of the few hiking columns in any newspaper.
This year we lost two long-time board members and added four new members. Noel “the Singing Horseman” DeCavalcante, passed away this summer after 26 years involvement with the Museum. Despite his illness, Noel continued serving on the Hall of Fame Committee and did general Museum work until the end. Ron Bungay retired from the board after many years of service. Ron led our construction crew and every area of the Old Mill and some of Ironmasters reflect his talent and hard work. Our four new board members were all active volunteers for years before joining the board. The four are: Judy Bennett, Jennifer Boag, Ed Riggs and Ed Schoenberger.
Robert “Red Wolf o’ da Smoky’s” Croyle continues to put out his monthly electronic newsletter filled with pictures and news about the A.T. Museum and the A.T. He consistently comes up with beautiful pictures and stories that I see nowhere else. Red Wolf also maintains our extensive membership records and recruitment and is in charge of our critical fundraising efforts.
Programs continue to be a highlight of the Museum season. A fascinating one in May was the talk by the Netteberg Family. Daughter Juniper “The Beast” was not quite 5 years old when she finished the A.T. In some places she didn’t walk the trail; she ran. Parents Olen and Danae, doctors who worked in the African nation of Chad, tried hard to keep the children entertained on the Trail. Meanwhile, the children got so used to hiking every day that during rest days, they went stir crazy. A truly amazing family.
Another engaging talk was by Christine Reed on How to Become a Rugged Outdoorswoman. One of several talks in the shaded picnic grove on the Museum grounds, she led an inspiring discussion of how to achieve your goals. Along with the Earl Shaffer Foundation, the Museum sponsored a storytelling and culture festival in late June. Several dozen people talked about their trail experiences and memories of Earl Shaffer and shared a variety of moving stories. On behalf of the Foundation, David Donaldson presented the Museum with a letter from Earl’s pioneering 1948 thru hike. In the letter, the White Mountain crew recommended “dead heading” Earl through the New Hampshire huts – giving him free food and lodging.
On Labor Day Weekend, Greg Cook talked about the experience of being a docent at the Museum while I showed slides and talked about the history of the Museum. The Thru Hiker Class of 1974 had their 50th reunion at the Museum. The upsurge in thru-hiking started in 1973 so these were trail pioneers. The talented duo, Karen and Shannon, of Wander Out Yonder, recorded several talks and Museum events and made them available on their Youtube Channel or on the Museum website.
During the winter, Museum Manager Julie Queen took on the Hiker Yearbook along with founder Odie Norman. The Museum will continue Odie’s work of more than a decade to capture each year’s class of hikers that is both a normal Yearbook and not like any other Yearbook. In future years Julie will look for volunteers to help continue the project while staying true to its roots.
Visitors to the Museum continue to delight in our pollinator garden along the entrance path and inside the main ramp. The garden continues to fill in and plants meander where they will, according to our Chief Gardener, Ann Bodling. In late summer, the garden was filled with bees and butterflies of many species nectaring on everything that was blooming. The pipevine growing at the top of the ramp once again stole the show when the pipevine swallowtail caterpillars were eating and growing there. Ann plans to do her best to keep the vigorous vine from taking over the museum.
Because of a groundhog that has taken up residence near the museum, the variety of plants was somewhat diminished, though the garden was still full and beautiful by late summer. This year, because of the drought, plants were shorter than in some years. Ann finds it always interesting to watch how a garden responds to weather, insects and herbivores and continues to thrive. In the spring she plans to remove some of the individual dominant plants to make way for more variety, particularly earlier blooming species for summer visitors to enjoy and learn from.
The Museum has a diverse group of talented volunteers but what makes the enterprise thrive is our two managers, Julie Queen and Missy Shank.
Missy completed her fifth year as hostel keeper at Ironmasters Hostel. She began in January 2020, a month before the global Covid pandemic was declared, not an auspicious time to enter the hospitality industry. Missy has enhanced the hostel’s reputation among the trail community and established a welcoming atmosphere. In a sign of a return to normalcy, the Hostel even hosted a few weddings this year.
Julie brought years of A.T. involvement to the Museum manager’s position in 2021. She has broadened the Museum’s outreach to the trail community and fostered a close-knit group of engaged volunteers. The Museum manager deals with an extraordinary variety of tasks and Julie handles these tasks with grace and aplomb.
Julie continues to attract many talented volunteers and foster camaraderie with monthly volunteer picnics, hikes and other outings and new projects for volunteers. Our dedicated volunteers always delight in the varied and fascinating visitors who come to the Museum each year. The Museum is fortunate to have both leaders as well as our many dedicated volunteers and supporters.
We thank our many volunteers and our supporters throughout the trail community and we look forward to another great year in 2025. Next year marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. It’s a reminder that the A.T. is still relatively young but has had a remarkable impact around the world.
For those in a position to support the Museum’s continued growth and operations, we appreciate any financial contribution. To contribute, please follow THIS LINK or CLICK HERE for our form to print and send in. use the Membership / Donation FORM. The FORM details the listing levels on the permanent June 2027 Museum plaque. All contributions through December 31, 2026, are added together to give a donor their plaque listing level. Your support makes the Museum the success we all enjoy!
Sincerely,
Larry Luxenberg Museum President, www.atmuseum.org or www.appalachiantrail.museum
Contact info:
Julie Queen, Museum Manager, 717-486-8126, [email protected] or [email protected]
Missy Shank, Ironmasters Manager, 717-486-4108, [email protected]
Robert “Red Wolf o’da Smoky’s” Croyle, Museum Membership Secretary,
[email protected]
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