On “Grandma Gatewood Day,” Ohio celebrates its most famous hiker

As we speak we pay homage to Ohio’s most well-known long-distance hiker, Emma “Grandma” Gatewood.

The intrigue: Solely a handful of males had ever walked the whole 2,055-mile Appalachian Path from Georgia to Maine when Gatewood did in 1955, at age 67, making her the primary lady to finish the solo thru-hike — alone, in a single path, with out stopping.

Driving the information: In 2012, the Ohio Normal Meeting declared April 27 to be “Grandma Gatewood Day.”

Flashback: Emma Caldwell, born close to Mercerville in 1887, raised 11 youngsters on a farm by way of the Nice Melancholy and survived many years of home abuse.

• When the children have been grown and he or she’d divorced her abuser, she developed a love for distance climbing and found the Appalachian Path in a 1949 Nationwide Geographic journal.
• With out telling a soul, she left Ohio within the spring of 1955 and began climbing north from Georgia’s Mt. Oglethorpe.

What she carried: She’s now referred to as a pioneer of the ultra-light climbing motion, however Gatewood carried solely what she thought she’d want: a gingham gown, an Military blanket, snacks, bobby pins, Vick’s salve and a bathe curtain to maintain the rain off.

• She’d want the bathe curtain. She hiked by way of two hurricanes that ripped up the East Coast that summer time.

Legacy: The hike made Gatewood well-known, and several other years later she joined a Columbus boy scout troop on the first-ever Buckeye Path hike.

• Gatewood has lengthy been well-known by Appalachian Path fanatics, and he or she’s celebrated within the Appalachian Path Conservancy headquarters in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, and the AT Museum and Corridor of Fame in Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania.

The broader world has seen her currently, too. The New York Instances celebrated her life as a part of its Neglected No Extra sequence. Plus:

• She’s honored by a historic marker close to Cheshire and on Madtree Brewing’s Legendary Lager.
• Hocking Hills State Park nonetheless hosts an annual “Grandma Gatewood Hike” alongside the six-mile Grandma Gatewood Path. The following is scheduled for October.

Go deeper: Try our Axios colleague Ben Montgomery’s best-selling ebook, “Grandma Gatewood’s Stroll.”