All the Appalachian Trails

FAIN: MD-263786-19

George Mason University (Fairfax, VA 22030-4444)
Theodore Mills Kelly (Project Director: June 2018 to September 2021)

Development of an interactive website tracing the history of the Appalachian Trail and visualizing the significant changes to the trail.

“All the Appalachian Trails” will provide a new way of making sense of the history of the Appalachian Trail—America’s oldest and most iconic long distance hiking trail. Since its completion in 1937, the Appalachian Trail has been re-routed many times, either to take advantage of more scenic locations, to avoid property disputes with local landowners, or to avoid natural or man made hazards. As a result, the Appalachian Trail walked by hikers today takes a very different route than the trail walked by hikers in 1937. We will be using the most current geospatial techniques, combined with the best practices of digital humanities, to create a free and interactive resource that that allows users to chart, examine, and make sense of the many routes of the Trail over time, and the ways that the history of the Trail and the communities through which it passes have been influenced by historical developments.

Associated Products

All the Appalachian Trails Design Document (Report)
Title: All the Appalachian Trails Design Document
Author: Mills Kelly
Author: Abigail Mullen
Abstract: The Appalachian Trail is the United States’ most iconic long-distance hiking trail, but its history is not widely known by the people who use it. All the Appalachian Trails is an interactive website that explicates the Appalachian Trail’s nearly 100-year history through an investigation of the changes in the trail’s route over time. Using historical maps and primary sources, users will be able to see different trail routes and discover a more complex understanding of the history of the trail and the ways in which the trail informs the larger history of the 20th-century United States. Users will be able to follow links from a large interactive map to primary sources, to digital exhibits about topics of interest to hikers and trail workers, to scholarly essays about the AT’s place in the history of the United States. The website is intended for a broad public audience, especially people with a personal connection to the trail, either through hiking or maintaining the trail.
Date: 05/31/19
Access Model: Submitted to NEH

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