Lauren R. Stevens will give a talk on the Mohawk Trail to the Stephentown Historical Society on Monday, May 5, at 7:30 pm. The meeting will be at the Stephentown Heritage Center on Garfield Road (County Route 26), Stephentown. The program is free and open to the public. The building is handicapped accessible. For directions or information, phone 518-733-0010.
The Mohawk Trail, the first designated scenic highway in the United States, will be 100 years old this year. This winding section of Route 2 crossed the spine of the Berkshires, stretching from Williamstown to Orange, MA. Leisure automobile travelers in the first half of the 20th century took in vistas from the Hairpin Turn and Whitcomb Summit in North Adams and stopped at numerous souvenir and snack shops. The heyday of Mohawk Trail tourism ended with the 1957 completion of the Massachusetts Turnpike with its promise of speedy direct transit and avoidance of towns.
The country in 1914 was fascinated by the closing of the western frontier and the accompanying romance of the western Indians. As a result, the massive “Pageant of the Mohawk Trail” staged in North Adams during the opening year featured New York’s Mohawks instead of the local Mahicans and generally confused area history with western expansion. Later tourist attractions would feature western Indian teepees and a 28 foot high Indian in plains-style garb, rather than Mahican culture.
Stevens, an environmentalist and writer, moved to Williamstown in the 1960s to teach and become a dean at Williams College. An environmental columnist for The Berkshire Eagle, he was the founder of The Advocate newsweekly and of the Hoosic River Watershed Association, with which he is still active. He leads efforts to create a long distance hiking trail along the Deerfield and Hoosic Rivers and to naturalize the flood chutes in North Adams.