Annie Dillard is a 20th century author. She was born in Pittsburgh. Her memoir, Pilgrim at Tinker

Creek, won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize. In one of her writings, she recalls her time at a youth camp.

She said it was, quote, only a half step out of a tent, end quote.

And then she added, you could still smell the sawdust.

She was referring to the so-called sawdust trail.

Billy Sunday, that famous 20th century fiery evangelist would tell his audiences

You need to hit the sawdust trail and he even would come to call his converts trail hitters.

So what is this?

And why are we talking about sawdust?

Well, this is the era of the tent meeting revivals. And these would be tents that would just be set up sometimes

in the middle of nowhere, sometimes in lots in urban centers, and more often than not the floor was a dirt floor and so they

would put down a layer of sawdust especially they would layer sawdust in the isles.

Now, this serves some very practical purposes.

This was dirt after all, and it could get damp,

or even muddy when there would be rains.

And so the sawdust would serve to absorb the moisture from the ground

and it would keep the ground dry. Also in these large urban tent meetings we're

talking about crowds of over 10,000, sometimes 20,000 people.

And that's a lot of noise of steps and footfalls and shuffling feet,

and the sawdust serve to dampen sound. There was also an aesthetic purpose for sawdust.

It had a pleasant smell. It was one of those smells that is sort of memorable. And so someone used sawdust once in some of these

tent revivals and they soon figured out that it works. Well this sawdust trail is also sometimes called the sawdust circuit.

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