The Appalachian Trail was Completed on August 14, 1937
Led by Myron Avery and others, volunteers and CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) crews. In 1937, the final section was completed:
Myron Avery walked and measured every step of the flagged or constructed route and become the first “2,000-milelr” on the footpath.
The last sections were, one mile between Davenport Gap and the Big Pigeon River in Tennessee, and two miles had to be built 186 miles south of Katahdin, on a high ridge connecting Spaulding and Sugarloaf mountains in Maine. A late-summer snowstorm prevented completion of the Maine work in 1936. With the small southern gap in the 2,025-mile route taken care of early the next spring, a six-man CCC crew completed the final link in the Maine woods without fanfare, on August 14, 1937, and moved on to build shelters.
Two months earlier, Avery had quietly saluted the imminent completion of the Trail-construction era, but he immediately challenged ATC members, meeting in Gatlinburg, Tennessee: “Rather than a sense of exultation, this situation brings a fuller realization of our responsibilities. To say that the Trail is completed would be a complete misnomer. Those of us, who have physically worked on the Trail, know that the Trail, as such will never be completed.”
Bilko/Canoe Man