Mohawk Trail Celebration Looks Back on History, Journeys
 Celebration attendees braved the rain on Saturday to mark the Mohawk Trail's centennial at the Whitcomb Summit. |
FLORIDA, Mass. — The crowd was thinner on Saturday but just as hardy as the gathering that marked the opening of the Mohawk Trail a century ago.
On that day, hundreds walked up the mountain from North Adams to attend. A century later, more than 50 people stood under umbrellas in the pouring rain at the Whitcomb Summit to celebrate the centennial of one the nation's first scenic byways.
"Thank you, every single one of you, for being here today," said state Rep. Gailanne Cariddi, D-North Adams. "You guys deserve the most congratulations it shows exactly what this Mohawk Trail means to us as a community."
The winding road starts in the east and cuts over the Hoosac Range. It connected the hilltowns with North Adams and Greenfield, drew leaf-peepers and day-trippers by the thousands and changed the lives of people living along its way.
Part of the state road was built through the farm of Stanley Brown's grandfather. By 1920, Brown's father had opened a garage with his brothers to service the traffic coming over the trail.
The cars in those days were fragile, making motoring an adventure.
With flat tires and overheated engines, "it must have been like an Outward Bound event," laughed Charles "Chuck" Cahoon, chairman of the North Adams.
Lauren Stevens, a journalist and environmentalist, said how a late friend would recall riding in the family Model T in reverse to the Western Summit because the car couldn't make it up going forward.
"They were not quite as dependable as they are today," he said.
Before the road, travelers would take the train to Drury and a stagecoach to North Adams. The opening of the Hoosac Tunnel made it easier but certain local leaders pushed for the development of a road.
The highway initially cost $368,000 and was funded by several legislative bills and the city of the North Adams. The gravel road had to be closed during the winter until it was paved from Charlemont at a cost of $1 million in 1929.
Brown has a photo of Floridians shoveling through the snow in 1926 to meet up with a plow from North Adams.
"It's kind of amazing they shoveled their way through five miles of snow," he said.
The road would undergo another major construction in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene, when it was closed for three months between Charlemont and Florida. The massive 13-mile project would be named the National Public Works Project of 2011.
"The trail's affected the families so much up here," said Brown, a Florida Historical Commission member and co-chairman of the 100th anniversary. While his family opened the former Brown's Garage, other residents built cabins and gift shops and restaurants and towers.
Brown's grandmother, asked what she thought the biggest event in her life on her 50th wedding anniversary in 1937, said, "the opening of the trail."
"That was because it changed the people's social life," said Brown. "Before the trail opened the people were closer."
Some 10,000 people attended "The Pageant of the Mohawk Trail," a historical extravaganza with four days of performances the year it opened. Arthur Latham Perry is believed to have first coined the term "Mohawk Trail" in the 1890s, a moniker supported by Judge John Aiken, a local historian who wrote a history of the trail.
North Adams City Engineer Franklin B. Locke advocated in 1909 for the road's construction, laying out one of the first designs. He and state Sen. Clinton Q. Richmond, who helped secure the funding, have both been referred to as the "father of the Mohawk Trail."
"I think it's important to have a chief advocate for the trail, such as my great-grandfather, but it's the community of interest and the labor that was used to build and maintain the trail that's the concern that remains today and brings us together," said Clinton Richmond, the senator's descendant.
 |
|
|
The trail was all about the journey in an era when road trips — particularly to historic and scenic sites — were becoming popular and affordable to a growing middle class.
The trail's decline began with the opening of the Massachusetts Turnpike in the late 1950s. Still considered a one of the region's most beautiful drives, its roadside attractions have withered away.
"As time went by, the methods of travel changed," Cahoon said. "It seemed that the destination was more than the trip.
"The beauty remains and it will always be a part of our heritage, part of our history, and thinking of what it might be in the future."
The slightly truncated program also included a cake that was swiftly cut up as people scattered for their cars.
Gene Carlson of the North Adams Historical Society was emcee and speakers included James Kolesar, vice president for public affairs at Williams College and Robert Campanile, park supervisor Western Gateway Heritage State Park. A number of historical society members from Adams, North Adams and Florida were in attendance, Peter Tomyl of the Mohawk Trail Association and North Adams Mayor Richard Alcombright and City Council President Lisa Blackmer.
Cariddi presented a resolution from the House of Representatives recognizing the cenntenial. Skipping the numerous "whereases" she quoted from a souvenir plate in the North Adams Historical Society museum:
"You can roam where fancies lead you over hill and dale, but you haven't seen America until you've seen the Mohawk Trail."
Tags: anniversary, centennial, historic sites, scenic byways, state highway,
