History
Background information needed!
Can you help?
Date built.
Location and date of other shelters built by Earl.
Anecdotal stories, including the rock in the shelter.
Here's what we have so far...
Earl routed the Appalachian Trail through Peters Mountain and built the shelter by himself around 1960. This was last standing of 6 shelters that he built.
Bruce thinks the shelter is constructed of chestnut wood. Only a little bit of rot and termintes were evident at the back of the shelter near the ground level at the time of disassembly. The pieces of wood were sawn, not cut with an axe or hatchet. At some point the sides were "finished" with mortar and bits of chicken wire - filling the gaps between horizontal pieces of wood. The mortar is considered not to be original.
The roof was constructed from flat scrap metal. In the photos you can see the top-right side (viewed from the back) was finished with several smaller pieces. Eventually a partial layer of corrugated metal and tar covered over Earl's work. The third layer of roofing was a big rubberized sheet that has covered the two previous layers for many years.
The shelter had a dirt floor with a rock showing at the left side. When the wood floor was installed (covering the rock), he asked that any association with his name be removed. It would be fitting for a terse identification to go on that rock.
Charlie
Courtesy of Jeff Buehler, more details of oral history and newsletters...