03/27/2022
So that's where the plaque design comes from. Neat 🌲🏔️
Another photo from the archive: If you're familiar with the GATC logo, or paid a visit to Springer Mountain or Neel Gap you might recognize the pose in the photo. This is one of the club's founding members and presidents, Warner Hall, who was persuaded to pose in 1933 for a plaque "of some appropriate design to go on the bronze markers to be erected at Neel Gap, Mt. Oglethorpe, and other places."
The plaques were created by G. H. Noble, an Atlanta physician, sculptor and member of the club, at a cost of $20.00 each, "a rather large amount" according to Eddie Stone, another GATC founder and who, along with Charlie Elliot, is responsible for laying out the Appalachian Trail in Georgia. After a few delays, the first marker was installed at Neel Gap in May 1934. As Hall was quoted in the Atlanta Journal at the time, "Our original purpose.... was to give added prestige to the Appalachian Trail in our section. In that respect we are meeting with considerable success. People who have heard of the Trail are inquiring about it... This is only one of the steps which we are taking to gain for the Appalachian Trail such recognition that it must be taken into consideration whenever a question of road building or other changes which may affect its course may come up."
The Trail wasn't completed in its entirety, Georgia to Maine, until 1937. The impacts of construction along the trail remain the subject of litigation to protect the integrity of the Trail and hiker experience to this day.
