C&O- Parkway Or Park- A Connection

On January 3, 1954 the Washington Post published an editorial in favor of building a new road, a parkway, along the path of the old abandoned C&O canal. Calling it “no longer a commercial or scenic asset…” it reasoned that a roadway through the area would “…enable more people to enjoy the beauties now enjoyed by very few.” By publishing that editorial, the Post was throwing its weight behind the parkway that the National Park Service and the Congress had proposed.

Two weeks later, a local, who was known as Orville to his family, answered that editorial with a letter to the editor of his own. In it he stated, “The stretch of 185 miles of country from Washington, DC to Cumberland, MD is one of the most fascinating and picturesque in the Nation…It is a refuge, a place of retreat, a long stretch of quiet and peace…a wilderness area where we can commune with God and nature, a place not yet marred by the roar of wheels and the sound of horns.” Orville went further and challenged the writer of the editorial to hike the whole 185 miles with him so he could see for himself that it should be saved from this highway idea. And the crazy thing is that the head of the editorial department, Robert Estabrook, and the writer, Merlo Pusey, took him up on it.

Why would these two busy newspapermen do that? Because the writer of the letter was William Orville Douglas, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, who was also an avid outdoorsman and defender of nature. A man who had been hiking 15 to 20 miles along the C&O every Sunday for years. This was personal for him and a great story for them.

Wm. O. Douglas had envisioned maybe four or five people, but the group had ballooned to 34 by the March 20th departure date. “A little larger than the Lewis and Clark expedition,” Douglas quipped. Not only Estabrook and Pusey, but naturalists, historians, outdoor clubs, boy scouts, and a host of others joined the entourage. Of course the Post reported daily on the hike. The wire services carried the story, Time and Life Magazines ran it, CBS did, too, as well as newsreels shown in movie theaters around the country. It was a bit of a media circus, which was all the better as Douglas saw it. He led with a blistering 4 mph pace and only 9 people ended up walking the whole distance. But by the end of the 8 day hike the word was out, and these 9 were met by a cheering throng of 50,000 as they reached the end of the trail in Georgetown.

Estabrook and Pusey returned to the paper and retracted the Post endorsement of the parkway, offering that the C&O was worth preserving. In the end the publicity the Associate Justice was able to generate killed the parkway proposal. Still, it would be seven more years before President Eisenhower gave it full protection as a National Monument in January of 1961.

I love this bit of history and how the actions of one person, albeit a pretty famous and well connected person, was able to make a difference. But it wasn’t just him. I would argue that without the Washington Post’s initial endorsement of the parkway, there wouldn’t have been such a public forum for Douglas. So give some credit to the editors of that editorial page.

Oh, and as a side note, my wife’s aunt married an Estabrook. In fact she was married to that Robert Estabrook, the editor that ok’d the endorsement editorial and later the retraction at the Post. I knew Bob, and how I wish he or is wife were still around. I have a million questions.

Until next week, Happy Trails…

(Special thanks to Margaret Estabrook Carroll for bringing this connection with her father to my attention.)