Description of Collection:  The Club has a rich and diverse history which has involved the three main activities of hiking, building and maintaining trails, and promoting conservation.  Since CMC never had a physical office, the club’s records have been relocated throughout its history.  The full details of these relocations have not been documented.  It is known that since the 1990s, the CMC records were transferred from CMC club president to president.  CMC president, Howard McDonald, retained the collection after his term and has provided stewardship since 1998.  In October 2002, Pete Steurer acquired the records from Mr. McDonald and began to the process of organizing the collection for presentation to UNCA.

The CMC collection prior to reorganization consisted of three 2-drawer file cabinets, one 4-drawer file cabinet and numerous boxes of assorted sizes.  After reorganization, the collection presented to UNCA consists of 19 boxes.    

With some exceptions, much of the historical information that one would expect a club to have retained has been found in the CMC collection.   This is remarkable, considering that most CMC officers changed every few years, and without a physical office, there was a greater likelihood for important information to be lost.  It is quite likely that three CMC members were instrumental in maintaining the history.  CMC Historian Jerome Dykeman took on the task of organizing the records in the 1950s and 1960s.  He died in 1973.  His outstanding work is evident in the collection today.  Beginning in the 1960s and continuing until her death in 1992, Eloise Whitson held office of CMC treasurer and/or secretary.  This long-term commitment to CMC is evident in the collection, in terms of the continuity she provided to new officers and the data stewardship shown in her outstanding record keeping.  Arch Nichols was an integral part of CMC from the 1940s until his death in 1989.  He led many conservation efforts and kept meticulous files.  These files are largely intact and are an integral part of the CMC history.  

Reorganization of the CMC Collection:  Standard archival practices allow for records to be maintained in the original order that they were produced.  Unfortunately, the original order of the CMC collection was not retained.  This was likely due to the frequent movement of the records as well as the document searches that occurred over the years by CMC members and guests.  To bring order to the collection, it was decided to determine record series groups and place the collection in chronological order within upon each record series.  A record series is a broad classification or grouping of similar records.  The record series groups that were determined for the CMC collection are listed in the following table.  The table also includes an estimate of the historic value of the records within the series and the physical box number for the original record containers when they were transferred to UNCA: 

[Pete Steurer]