[at-l] Trail History Clarification Requested

[ellen at clinic.net (Bob C.)]

>"...Can anyone provide additional information that addresses the degree to
>which the AT was aquired ...(by condemnation)?" asks Rick.

It's hard to get a meaningful statistic, because forest land titles tend to be
pretty sloppy. It was common in Maine -- and I suspect elsewhere -- during
depression days for loggers to buy a woodlot, clearcut it, and then abandon it
because other land was so cheap that it wasn't worth paying taxes on stripped
land.

Most towns eventually sold the tax-acquired land with quit-claim, rather than
warranty deeds. In Maine a dozen or more towns had even deorganized by the time
the National Park Service bought the trail corridor, leaving many flawed titles
to tax acquired lands.

What I'm suggesting is that the National Park Service may have had a willing
seller, but to clear up clouds on the titles, sometimes went through
condemnation proceedings anyway. Old titles are notoriously confused. When I
bought my house property, I discovered that someone owned a 6th part of the
foundation of a long decayed mill building because of an ancient inheritance. I
spent countless hours and hundreds of dollars in lawyer fees tracking down the
out holding to get a 90-year-old woman to sign off. Governments when faced with
such situations, simply condemn the property.

Even multi-national companies sometimes have flawed titles. It was cleared up
before the National Park Service became involved, but until the Maine Supreme
Court ruled otherwise in 1982, a few big companies were claiming 400,000 acres
that were really owned by the State of Maine.

There is a growing reluctance by governments to use eminent domain for
recreational lands. Congress voted to pay 10 times the appraised value for the
Saddleback ridge line, because the Park Service and the Maine Congressional
delegation didn't want condemnation used.

Weary