The Green Mountain Club was founded at a meeting of Vermont hiking enthusiasts in the Van Ness House hotel, which stood on this site from 1870 until it burned in 1951. The club's mission was to make the Vermont mountains play a larger part in the life of the people, and this led to the creation of the Long Trail, the first long-distance hiking trail in the nation. Vermont's footpath in the wilderness, the Long Trail follows a roughly 272-mile route along the high ridges of the Green Mountains from Massachusetts to Canada, crossing Vermont's highest peaks. Completed in 1930, the trail continues to be maintained by the club. The Green Mountain Club's founder, James P. Taylor, lived in the Van Ness House much of his adult life.
