Vermont. But, after graduating from Harvard, he eventually went to work in the new U.S. Forest Service and began carving out a niche as a profound thinker and an advocate for wilderness. By 1919, his radical ideas had led to him being edged out of the USFS, and he turned his attention to creating a new discipline that later came to be called “regional planning.”

His initial 1921 “project in regional planning” was a proposal for a network of work camps and communities in the mountains, all linked by a trail that ran from the highest point in New England to the highest point in the South. He called it the Appalachian Trail.

MacKaye was convinced that the pace of urban and industrial life along the East Coast was harmfulto people. He envisioned the A.T. as a path interspersed with planned wilderness communities where people could go to renew themselves. That idea never gained much traction, but the notion of a thousand-mile footpath in the mountains fired the imaginations of hikers and outdoorsmen from Maine to Georgia. Inspired by him, they began building trails and trying to connect them.

What Was His Connection to ATC?

MacKaye was responsible for convening and organizing the first Appalachian Trail “conference” in Washington, D.C., in 1925. That gathering of hikers, foresters, and public officials embraced the goal of building the Trail. They established an organization, called the Appalachian Trail Conference, appointed MacKaye as its “field organizer,” and named Major William Welch, manager of New York’s Harriman Park, as its first chairman. The Appalachian