The Benton MacKaye Trail National Scenic Trail Feasibility Act of 2026, the status of which I described in a recent post, was passed today by the U.S. House of Representatives. The House bill, H.R. 2768, was part of a package of about a dozen bills Republican House leadership had agreed to consider this week under…Continue readingBenton MacKaye National Scenic Trail Feasibility Act passes U.S. House
Category: Benton MacKaye
* * * I began an August 5, 2024 post as follows: In May of 2022, then again almost exactly a year later, I wrote about efforts by trail activists in the southern region of the Appalachian Mountains to seek Congressional designation of the 288-mile Benton MacKaye Trail (BMT) as a National Scenic Trail (NST),…Continue reading“Benton MacKaye National Scenic Trail Feasibility Study Act” moves a step closer to passage by the U.S. Congress
Fifty years ago, on December 11, 1975, Benton MacKaye died at age 96 in Shirley Center, Massachusetts, at the home of his friend, carekeeper, and long-time neighbor Lucy Johnson. To commemorate the semi-centennial of this mortal event, I include further below two substantial passages from my previous writing about MacKaye’s life and legacy. The first…Continue readingBenton MacKaye’s last days — and my not-so-funny 1995 alternative vision of a future Appalachian Trail
* * * “The first Appalachian Trail Conference [ATC] was called by the Federated Societies, at the request of the Regional Planning Association of America, to take place at Washington, D.C., on March 2 and 3, 1925.” Thus begins the eight-page, double-spaced typescript titled “Brief of Proceedings of the Appalachian Trail Conference.”…Continue reading“The Conference was made a permanent body”: The first meeting of the organization that created the Appalachian Trail, March 2-3, 1925
The Benton MacKaye National Scenic Trail Feasibility Study Act of 2024 In May of 2022, then again almost exactly a year later, I wrote about efforts by trail activists in the southern region of the Appalachian Mountains to seek Congressional designation of the 288-mile Benton MacKaye Trail (BMT) as a National Scenic Trail (NST), under…Continue readingA “particular kind of patriotism”: Benton MacKaye’s trailblazing legacy resonates on Capitol Hill