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A Post Card Tour of the Historic Mohawk Trail

Welcome to the Mohawk Trail. Browse through these vintage post cards to discover an area rich in history. The Mohawk Trail is the first scenic road in New England. It officially opened on October 22, 1914. With 63 miles of  breath taking scenery.
 
 

The trail began life as a Native American footpath across the Berkshires, used for trade, hunting, and social calling by five tribes, including the Pocumtuck and the Mohawk.
 

After the colonization, the trail was successively widened and repaved, and its route altered to accomodate changing modes of transportation.
 

In 1914, at the dawn of the automobile age, the Mohawk Trail was declared a scenic route, the first such one.
 
 

Their population considerably reduced by disease from early contact with Europeans explorers, the native people were not able to effectively protect their homelands.
 

With the Indian Wars and the American Revolution over, the white settlements concentrated on more trade with each other.
 

North Adams became a booming industrial town, and the old trade route between Boston and western Massachusetts became more vital.
 

Widened and graded, the old trail, now become a road, was better  able to support the increasingly heavy traffic.