 In 1937, with the completion of the Appalachian Trail, Mount Oglethorpe officially became the southern terminus of the trail.Early thru-hikers of the Appalachian Trail such as Grandma Gatewood, Gene Espy and Earl Shaffer began their journeys at Mount Oglethorpe.In 1949, James E. Boyd conducted long-range line-of-sight experiments between the mountain and Georgia Tech to study the effects of weather on microwave propagation.