Blue-Blazed Trails
Some trail sections are marked using blue plastic diamond signs or metallic disks nailed in trees rather than painted blazes.
On December 27, 1929 at the Graduate Club in New Haven the Reverend Edgar Heermance (Connecticut Forest & Park Association's Secretary) met with several companions and described his idea for the Blue-Blazed Hiking Trail System.
In many cases unemployed workers were used to help build the trails as well as other projects in Connecticut's parks and forests as a part of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and similar (e.g. state and municipal) work camps and programs.
[6] After rapid growth in the 1930s persisting into the mid-1940s, the post-"World War 2" housing boom began to encroach upon sections of the Blue-Blazed Hiking Trails, particularly in heavily populated areas affected by the move from urban cities to suburban developments.
Residential housing and follow-on commercial development caused hiking trails to be re-routed or disappear altogether if a suitable detour could not be found.
On the same map you can see that at one point in time almost all of the major Blue-Blazed Trails west of the Connecticut River were interconnected (the Appalachian, Mattatuck, Tunxis, Quinnipiac, Mattabesett, Metacomet, Naugatuck, Pomeraug and Paugusett).
References to lost or vestigial portions of Blue-Blazed Hiking Trails can still be found in the land use planning documents of local municipalities such as recommendations to purchase for open space several tracts of land over which the Naugatuck Blue-Blazed Hiking Trail once traveled (e.g. April 1998 Town of Bethany Conservation Commission's 'Open Space Plan'[8]).
The Saugatuck and Aspetuck Valley Blue-Blazed hiking trails in Fairfield County were added in 2005 and 2006 respectively as a result of agreements reached between the CFPA, Nature Conservancy, the State of Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Aquarion Water Company (previously the Bridgeport Hydraulic Company).
Many of the Blue-Blazed Hiking Trails in Connecticut travel through or near one or more of the State Forests, often very close to the sponsored (DEEP) letterbox.
