In 1939 the Appalachian Trail Conference issued guidelines to its member clubs regarding the construction of shelters (then called lean-tos) along the Appalachian Trail. The goal, as stated in this document, was to place shelters approximately 10 miles apart:

Such spacing avoids undue exertion for travelers carrying heavy packs and yet permits "skipping" a lean-to by more strenuously inclined traveler's for their day's journey.

The design of the lean-tos was to follow the general design of the Adirondack shelter: three-walled, with a steeply sloping roof, and a stone fireplace at the front that would radiate heat into the structure.

This article in the Bulletin of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (Volume 22, no. 4, 1953) describes the first trip to Corbin Cabin by a PATC work crew to begin the process of renovating the structure which had stood empty since 1938 when George Corbin was forced to move out.

Corbin, the builder of the home and its only resident,  came to visit the work crew while they were there to describe his life in upper Nicholson Hollow and to provide some history of the cabin. He was 65 years old at the time.

The work on the cabin was made easier by the crew's ability to drive a jeep down what is now the Nicholson Hollow Trail to bring supplies to the work site. That trail is now impassable to vehicles. In the summer of 2017, a National Park Service historic preservation crew replaced the roof on the cabin and had to fly the roofing materials in by helicopter.

This photograph of Corbin Cabin was taken by an unknown photographer c. 1965. It shows the condition of the Cabin following its renovation by the PATC in the mid-1950s.

The Dick's Dome Shelter is located in Sky Meadows State Park along the Appalachian Trail in Fauquier County, VA. Built in 1987 by Potomac Appalachian Trail Club member Dick George on what was private property, the shelter is a very small geodesic dome along the bank of Whiskey Creek. The PATC has built a replacement, Whiskey Creek Shelter, just up the hill from the old Dome.

Built in 1984 using the traditional design of open lean to stone and log shelters, Calf Mountain Shelter is located in Augusta County, Virginia, at the southern end of Shenandoah National Park. The shelter was meant to hold up to six people and is maintained by the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club. The Calf Mountain Shelter is built, in part, out of the remains of the Rip Rap and Sawmill Run Shelters, both of which had been dismantled due to over use.

Built in 1940 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, Bearfence Mountain Shelter is located in Greene County, Virginia inside the boundaries of Shenandoah National Park. Maintained by the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club, the shelter is named after the nearby summit of Bearfence Mountain which has an elevation of 3,640 ft. The origin of Bearfence name likely came from a nearby pasture which was fenced in to keep bears out.

This map of the Appalachian Trail was produced by the Appalachian Trail Conference in 1948. It shows the southern terminus at Mount Oglethorpe (rather than the current Springer Mountain).

This 1938 map of the Appalachian Trail from the Susquehanna River to the Virginia/Tennessee border, appeared on the back of the stationary of the Appalachian Trail Conference beginning in the late 1930s. It describes those portions of the Trail covered by the PATC's Guide to Paths in the Blue Ridge: Measured Distances and Detailed Directions for 506 Miles of the Appalachian Trail and 65 Miles of Side Trails in Virginia and Adjacent States, originally published in 1931 and reprinted numerous times since. The route of the Trail in 1938, especially in southern Virginia, is quite different from the current route.

Structure Completion Dates

Lewis Spring Lean-to: May 1936
Rock Spring Shelter: June 1937
Doyle River Shelter: March 1937
Pocosin Shelter: June 1937
Big Run Lean-to: February 1939
Rip Rap Lean-to: February 1939
Old Rag Lean-to: September 1939
High Top Lean-to: October 1939
Pass Mountain Lean-to: October 1939
Meadow Springs Shelter: September 1939
Hawksbill Gap Lean-to: May 1940
Bearfence Lean-to:June 1940
Shaver Hollow Lean-to:July 1940
South River Lean-to:July 1940
Pinefield Lean-to: August 1940
Big Flat Lean-to: December 1940
Gravel Springs Lean-to: January 1941
Indian Run Lean-to: March 1941
Black Rock Lean-to: June 1941
Sawmill Run Lean-to: June 1941
Elkwallow Lean-to: December 1941

The Dave Lesser Shelter is the last shelter on the Appalachian Trail before northbound hikers reach Harpers Ferry, or the first they encounter south of Harpers Ferry. Maintained by the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club, the shelter is a three-sided structure with a very large front deck. There is also a picnic pavilion with a fire pit and a privy. Half a dozen tent sites are scattered along the slope below the shelter and the freshwater spring is .25 miles down slope. Relatively few thru hikers stop overnight at the Lesser shelter, largely because they are so close to Harpers Ferry, the psychological mid-point of their hike (the real half way point is 80 miles north in Pennsylvania near Pine Grove Furnace). The shelter was built in 1994.

A page from the Dave Lesser Shelter logbook with entries from April 26, 2016, to May 9, 2016. The first three entries are typical of the sort of inspirational writing long distance hikers leave behind--either as messages to friends along the trail, or simply because they want to. The May 9 entry contains artwork of a sort that often ends up in the shelter logs.

Constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1939, just north of Linden, Virginia. Like many of the shelters along the Trail, the Manassas Gap Shelter resided on private land for many decades. Built from chestnut logs, the shelter is a simple lean-to with three walls, originally equipped with six wire framed bunks. Until the 1980s there were also bunks across the back of the structure, but these were removed in the 1980s during a restoration of the shelter brought on by a severe infestation of mice and field rats. A covered spring is just downslope from the shelter.

According to the Bulletin of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (July 1939), the Manassas Gap Shelter (then called a Lean-to) repesented the first project "accomplished as a result of the ruling of Director Fechner of the Civilian Conservation Corps that, subject to certain conditions, the CCC could build lean-tos on privately owned lands."

At the time of the shelter's construction, it was accessible by car via the Linden-Ashby Gap fire road, which would take visitors to within 250 feet of the structure.