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:
“All men are lonely. But sometimes it seems to me that we Americans are the loneliest of all. Our hunger for foreign places and new ways has been with us almost like a national disease. Our literature is stamped with a quality of longing and unrest, and our writers have been great wanderers.”
—Carson McCullers (1917–1967)
“Never is a historic deed already completed when it is done but always only when it is handed down to posterity. What we call “history” by no means represents the sum total of all significant deeds.... World history ... only comprises that tiny lighted sector which chanced to be placed in the spotlight by poetic or scholarly depictions.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“The trail of the serpent reaches into all the lucrative professions and practices of man. Each has its own wrongs. Each finds a tender and very intelligent conscience a disqualification for success. Each requires of the practitioner a certain shutting of the eyes, a certain dapperness and compliance, an acceptance of customs, a sequestration from the sentiments of generosity and love, a compromise of private opinion and lofty integrity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)