<P> The Appalachian Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, and the Pacific Crest Trail form what is known as the Triple Crown of Hiking in the United States . </P> <P> The trail was conceived by Benton MacKaye, a forester who wrote his original plan--called "An Appalachian Trail, A Project in Regional Planning"--shortly after the death of his wife in 1921 . MacKaye's idea detailed a grand trail that would connect a series of farms and wilderness work / study camps for city - dwellers . In 1922, at the suggestion of Major William A. Welch, director of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, his idea was publicized by Raymond H. Torrey with a story in the New York Evening Post under a full - page banner headline reading "A Great Trail from Maine to Georgia!" The idea was quickly adopted by the new Palisades Interstate Park Trail Conference as their main project . </P> <P> On October 7, 1923, the first section of the trail, from Bear Mountain west through Harriman State Park to Arden, New York, was opened . MacKaye then called for a two - day Appalachian Trail conference to be held in March 1925 in Washington, D.C. This meeting inspired the formation of the Appalachian Trail Conference (now called the Appalachian Trail Conservancy) (ATC). </P> <P> A retired judge named Arthur Perkins and his younger associate Myron Avery took up the cause . In 1929, Perkins, who was also a member of the Connecticut Forest and Park Association and its Blue Blazed Trails committee, found Ned Anderson, a farmer in Sherman, Connecticut, who took on the task of mapping and blazing the Connecticut leg of the trail (1929--1933). It ran from Dog Tail Corners in Webatuck, New York, which borders Kent, Connecticut, at Ashley Falls, 50 miles (80 km) through the northwest corner of the state, up to Bear Mountain at the Massachusetts border . (A portion of the Connecticut trail has since been rerouted (1979--1983) to be more scenic, adhering less to highways and more to wilderness, and includes a Ned K. Anderson Memorial Bridge .) </P>

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