A Quick History of Leaf-Peeping

In 2014, columnist Jim Mullen and his wife, Sue, were returning home from the grocery store, their to-do list loaded with tasks like cleaning gutters and putting up storm windows. But this was the Catskills, right in the heart of October.

“We’ve been stuck behind Mr. and Mrs. Leaf Peeper for 45 minutes,” Mullen wrote.

He went on to complain about how tourists congest the roads every fall, disrupting the locals who had more important things to do than gaze at 'dead leaves.' 'If you look at them up close, they’re dirty, spotted, misshapen, full of bugs,' Mullen wrote.

In a Grinch-like turn of events, as Mr. and Mrs. Leaf Peeper made their way to an overlook, the Mullens caught sight of a vibrant red and gold panorama stretching out before them. Struck with wonder, they decided to follow the tourists, only to realize they weren’t tourists at all, but locals from a nearby town. 'They didn’t know why, but they’d chosen to take the day off and explore,' Mullen recalled. 'We decided to take the rest of the day off, too.'

Mullen’s story is a reflection of the irresistible pull of the Northeast’s most famous seasonal spectacle, one that sparked the rise of a whole tourism industry and still manages to astonish even the most cynical. Here’s a quick journey through the history of autumn leaf viewing—long before it earned the title 'leaf-peeping.'

Cruising Through the Autumn Display

Our shared fascination with the feeling of stepping into a watercolor painting is so strong that you can probably find a guide to fall foliage spots no matter where you live. In Japan, leaf-peeping is known as momiji-gari, which is often translated as 'hunting red leaves.' In Finland, ruska refers to the colorful leaves themselves.

While the United States offers stunning autumn displays from Texas to Minnesota, it’s undeniable that the Northeast reigns supreme during the season—a title it has held for over 150 years. Henry David Thoreau, a lifelong Massachusetts resident, once described October as 'the month of painted leaves.' He had planned a book filled with paintings of autumn leaves paired with descriptions of the plants they came from, and although he passed away in 1862 before completing it, his notes were published that year as Autumnal Tints. In the midst of drooping yellow elms, he compared the scene to standing 'within a ripe pumpkin-rind'; red maples he described as 'burning bushes.'

Emily Dickinson, another 19th-century Massachusetts poet, also captured the beauty of the maple in the last stanza of her poem 'Autumn':

'The maple wears a gayer scarf, The field a scarlet gown. Lest I should be old-fashioned, I’ll put a trinket on.'

In October 1863, a correspondent for New Orleans’s Times-Picayune in New York remarked that 'When American poets first began to speak of the 'gorgeousness' of October' in the Northeast, 'they were met with hearty laughter abroad and in the South, and their enthusiasm was considered excessive.' But 'that was years ago,' the writer noted, and travelers had since recognized that the region’s annual 'color show' was indeed as spectacular as the poets had claimed.

As the century wore on, the colorful displays of autumn became a key attraction for seasonal getaways. An 1877 advertisement for Guigon House, a resort in the Catskills, boasted 'magnificent mountains, stunning fall foliage, and excellent partridge shooting.' A September 1884 article in Connecticut’s Hartford Courant mentioned the popularity of taking the 8:40 a.m. train from Hartford to the Hudson River, having lunch, and returning the same day. 'The scenery along the Western road with the fall foliage is grand,' it declared.

While the majority of this activity took place in the Northeast, the West and Midwest were not without their own autumnal wonders. The Cincinnati Enquirer urged people in October 1887 to visit the city’s zoo, 'now glowing in all the splendor of fall foliage,' and in September 1906, Washington’s Spokane Chronicle featured a notice about a $2 round-trip steamer ride down the Saint Joe River, showcasing its 'superb fall-tinted foliage and perfect river reflections.'

It wasn’t so different from the way many of us enjoy leaf-peeping today: by taking the scenic route, whether by train, boat, or car. In just a few decades, what started as a minor feature of a fall outing grew into the main event—turning a passing trend into a booming tourism industry.

The Leaf-Peeper Invasion

In late September 1934, the New England Council conducted a three-day aerial survey of the region to create a fall foliage guide for visitors. The Council organized New England’s first fall foliage festival in New Hampshire in early October. The following year, Vermont’s Burlington Daily News reported that fall foliage had turned New England into a 'mecca for tourists,' and resorts would remain open throughout autumn to cater to the growing crowds. The prevailing thought seemed to be that tourists would come regardless, so the region had better prepare its infrastructure to manage (and profit from) the influx.

Numerous towns began hosting their own fall foliage festivals, including Elkins, West Virginia, and Uniontown, Pennsylvania. In 1941, the chamber of commerce in North Adams, Massachusetts, took things a step further by instituting an entire fall foliage week. Even gas rationing during World War II couldn’t stop people from heading to the rural roads every autumn: The North Adams Transcript reported in 1942 that 'foliage sight-seers' had been stockpiling gasoline for their annual trips to the Berkshires.

In the 1960s, the people traveling to admire the foliage were finally given a catchier name: leaf-peepers. It first appeared in print in the September 1965 issue of Vermont’s Bennington Banner, which noted that 'prospects for weekend ‘leaf peepers’ seem extremely good.' The term 'leaf-peeker' predates it, first surfacing in 1963. '‘Leaf-Peeker’ Proves To Be Kissin’ Cousin,' the Banner declared. (A boardinghouse owner had learned that she and one of her guests shared relatives from a small Ohio town, and one of her cousins had married one of his. This discovery made the front page of the newspaper.)

Although 'leaf-peeker' has seen occasional use over the years, it has been completely overshadowed by leaf-peeper—a nickname that some people find as irritating as the word moist. 'The term is a scourge,' Devin Gordon wrote in 2017 for GQ. 'For one thing, it’s dirty and voyeuristic. For another, it’s infantilizing, as if I’ve never seen red or yellow before.'

Because of the negative connotations surrounding leaf-peeper, it has become the target of scorn, as demonstrated in Mullen’s 'Mr. and Mrs. Leaf Peeper.' And while the Northeast continues to embrace its identity as the leaf-peeper’s paradise—a multi-billion-dollar boon to the economy—you can understand the frustration of its long-term residents, who find themselves overwhelmed by vacationers acting as if they’ve never seen the colors red or yellow before. But as Jim and Sue Mullen once discovered, it's difficult not to behave that way in the face of so many brilliantly colored leaves.