History along the Trail

Harpers Ferry National Historic Park is located, essentially, in a bowl. The town (which includes both the national parks and 300 private residences) is surrounded by the Appalachian Mountains. If you're feeling adventurous, you can't go wrong with Maryland Heights. Its a roughly 1/2 to 2 hour hike to the top of the hill, and much of it is fairly steep. At the top (or at the overlook if you don't want to go the entire way up) you can see beautiful views of the surrounding areas and be satisfied that you gave yourself a decent workout. In addition, throughout the hike you get the chance to see and hike around the remains of fortifications built by the Union forces stationed on this hill during the civil war. Even more helpful, there are numerous waysides that detail the efforts of union troops to build these defenses and how they dragged the cannons up themselves because the ground was too steep for the horses.
Valley Green is another excellent of where trails and history meet. Running along the Wissahickon Creek, this park has numerous signs that detail this areas rich history, be it the covered bridge, the remains of a mill, or a sign explaining the saga of the Delaware Indians that inhabited this Valley prior to European settlement. Visitors to this park include, hikers, bikers, and walkers, but what seems to unite them is that the signs draw them away from there walk, curious to learn just a little about those who walked this ground before them. They might not have come to the park expecting to learn something, but they leave, hopefully, a little more knowledgeable about the past... if they stop. Of course, some folks will ignore such packets of information, but it's certainly helpful that such nuggets of information are at least available to the average visitor.
For too many people, history is something that is contained in books and museums. The 19th century might well have been in Narnia for the way that many people conceptualize it. But history didn't take place in some far distant land, it took place all around us (the building I'm currently typing in survived both John Brown's raid and the Civil War). The difficultly is to return the people of the past to the places where they acted in a way that is meaningful to the average person.
 The waysides on Maryland Heights do an excellent job with this, as its easy for the hiker to sympathize with the soldiers who were tasked with charting up the cannons to the top of the mountain. Waysides at battlefield trails that point out the distance between the two armies (and thus the distance soldiers had to charge) are also quite effective. Gettysburg and Culloden battlefields in particular are both very effective at this. By contrast, if I'm going for a run in Valley Green, its somewhat difficult for me to emphasize with the owner of a flour-mill, since I'm engaged in an entirely different task. A more meaningful wayside along the same stretch of trail details the efforts of the CCC to build the trail during the great depression. In this case, I'm not performing anything resembling trail maintenance on my run, I can appreciate the work of those who built the trail, there is a clear connection as I'm literally standing on the results of their efforts. One needs to only stare and imagine the sounds of battle in order to understand the challenges facing the soldiers. Its not enough to simply state information, as any park ranger will tell you, it needs to be meaningful for the visitor in order to make it stick. When done right, waysides along hiking/ running trail can be an excellent way to make this meaningful interpretation happen.