Seeing more as a trail advocate
May Watts was a firm believer in the philosphy that people need contemplative walking trails to reconnect with nature. With her braided hair secured in a bandanna, her energetic walk took her from the nature trails in the Morton Arboretum to the hiking trails of Europe. When Watts came across an abandoned strip of land; once the right-of-way for the defunct Chicago, Aurora and Elgin railway, she saw that as a future public footpath. It was a vision affirming her belief that nature is interesting and tells a story even in ordinary places. Her 1963 "Letter to the Editor" in the Chicago Tribune, was a passionate call for seeing her vision of the future:
We are human beings. We are able to walk upright on two feet. We need a footpath. Right now there is a chance for Chicago and its suburbs to have a footpath, a long one.
The right-of way of the Aurora electric road lies waiting. If we have courage and foresight, such as made possible the Long Trail
in Vermont and the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia, and the network of public footpaths Britain, then we can create from this strip a proud resource.
Look ahead some years into the future. Imagine yourself going for a walk on a autumn day. Choose some part of the famed Illinois footpath. where the highway crosses it, you enter over a stile. The path lies ahead, curving around a hawthorn tree, then proceeding under the shade of a forest of sugar maple trees, dipping into a hollow with ferns, then skiring a thicket of wild plum, to straighten out for a long stretch of priarie, tall grass prairie, with big blue stem and blazin star and silphium and goldenrod...
That is all in the future, the possible future. Right now the right-of-way lies waiting, and many hands are itching for it. Many bulldozers are drooling.
Chicago Tribune, September 30, 1963. Section 1, Page 20. Voice of the People. Future Footpath
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