The Marker Story

In the beginning of 2016 after the release of our wood trail maps a customer came into our studio woodshop and asked us if we had an elegant souvenir of the C&O Canal that wasn’t a key fob or “plastic thingy Made in China;” something that he could display in his home.

So that got us thinking about what Trails had in common - Mileage and Way points. We put on our design hats and made some prototypes out of some scrap Cherry wood and showed them to a friend that ran a Bed and Breakfast and Bicycle Tour Company. She loved them and immediately placed an order.

We thought that the Marker would be a great idea for helping Trails and Parks generate income for their always needed maintenance and improvements. And so the Been There Marker Program and Product was born.

We developed a Beta Test program with the National Parks Service to see if others would like and buy the product. They did and the reorders started.

Meanwhile, we wondered if there may be an opportunity to help other Trails. So we began researching what these Trails were all about and realized they pretty much had several traits common with each other. They were always in need of generating revenues for their Trails, they never had enough volunteers to help and for the most part were understandably risk adverse due to limited resources and time.

So, we brought the two together to create the Marker Program that provides a turnkey, income generating Program with a proven Product for the over 1,000 Rail Trails and National / State Parks nationwide.

100% Hand Made in the USA

The Marker Story

About the designers