National Historic Trail is a designation for a protected area in the United States containing historic trails and surrounding areas. They are part of the National Trails System.
National Historic Trails were authorized under the National Parks and Recreation Act of 1978 (Public Law 95-625), amending the National Trails System Act of 1968 (Public Law 90-543), which had introduced National Scenic Trails and National Recreation Trails. National Scenic Trails and National Historic Trails may only be designated by an act of Congress.
National Historic Trails are designated to protect the remains of significant overland or water routes to reflect the history of the nation. Most of them are highway routes and are not hiking trails, although they provide opportunities for hiking and other outdoor activities along their routes. Only one is a water trail, Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail.
Read more about National Historic Trail: List of National Historic Trails
Famous quotes containing the words national, historic and/or trail:
“In the past, it seemed to make sense for a sportswriter on sabbatical from the playpen to attend the quadrennial hawgkilling when Presidential candidates are chosen, to observe and report upon politicians at play. After all, national conventions are games of a sort, and sports offers few spectacles richer in low comedy.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)
“The first farmer was the first man, and all historic nobility rests on possession and use of land.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“These, and such as these, must be our antiquities, for lack of human vestiges. The monuments of heroes and the temples of the gods which may once have stood on the banks of this river are now, at any rate, returned to dust and primitive soil. The murmur of unchronicled nations has died away along these shores, and once more Lowell and Manchester are on the trail of the Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)