January 16, 2020
Things Change - But Not Our Love of the Outdoors
by Karen Gradel

For a while now Barbara Wiemann has been organizing and digitizing the Club’s archives. I was interested in seeing how the club has changed over the years, so I took the 1st box that covered 1931 to 1943 home.

The box is filled with meeting minutes, pictures, membership lists, newspaper articles and more. I started reading the first minutes and found that the first meeting was held Wednesday, Dec 2nd 1931 at Allentown City Hall. At that meeting the first officers were elected and the members picked the name as Allentown Hiking Club and set the fee to join the club at $1.00. They decided on a schedule of 2 Saturday hikes, one Sunday hike and a business meeting every month. The club’s first hike was Dec 6th to the Pinnacle. They were informed they were responsible for maintaining of the Appalachian Trail from New Tripoli-Tamaqua Rd seven and a half miles west to Tri County Corner.

A big difference is how the hikes were scheduled. There was a Program committee comprised of 3 members that would create a hike schedule for the next 3 months. The upcoming hikes were announced at the meeting and ‘sketches and descriptions were distributed to the members.’ If there was a change in the schedule a postcard would be sent to each member detailing the change.

While reading through the minutes of the first few year’s meetings, one of the most frequent subjects for discussion was transportation. We take for granted how easy it is to get to a hike. We just get in our cars and go but back then not everyone had a car. At the January 1932 meeting it was voted that everyone on a hike give 10 cents to the treasurer for a gasoline fund. In August 1932 the club decided to hire a truck and driver who would transport hikers a distance of fifty-seven miles for $5.50. At the August 1933 meeting a motion was approved to put out a box at each hike that required a car and every one could put in what they can and then it would be divided evenly among the drivers. And in September 1934 it was agreed that the cost of transportation to the hike would be determined during the planning and be announced with each hike.

While there was a lot different there were also some things that were the same. The most obvious is our love of the outdoors. One of the other similarities is the effort to recruit new members. Today one of our main sources is Social Media but back then it was more of a word of mouth approach. At the January 1938 meeting when it was announced there were 62 members the President urged members to ‘try to interest other people and to make our club sound so interesting that other people would think it is a privilege to join.’ And in January 1939 the Club President suggested everyone bring a non-member friend to the next hike to encourage new membership. Both are also good ideas for today.