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As a group of children waited for a hayride through Catoctin Mountain Orchard in Thurmont last week, a speaker at the National Scenic Byway designation ceremony motioned toward them.

"The reason we're here today is for their benefit," Cate Magennis Wyatt told the crowd. She is the president of the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership, the nonprofit that spearheaded the effort to designate a 180-mile stretch of road from Gettysburg, Pa. to Monticello, Va. a National Scenic Byway. She said the 20 months of hard work that accomplished the task was meant not only to honor the region's history, but also for the benefit of the next generation.

"Our efforts to create the National Scenic Byway honor those who have gone before us, who have contributed towards our wellbeing and in the same light our efforts ... do the same for the next generation," she said on Oct. 21.

U.S. Route 15 through Frederick County is now part of the National Scenic Byway, which usually means a higher likelihood of winning funding for improvements and gaining national marketing, she said.

"Not any one of our partners could afford that type of marketing," she said. "We're literally on the map."

Thurmont's Main Street Manager, Nancy Gregg Poss, is excited about the designation, too. She said the town has seen increased traffic since Route 15 was named the Catoctin Mountain Scenic Byway by the Federal Highway Administration in September 2005 and she expects the new designation will bring even more tourists and money to the area. "This is just going to be another tool" in bringing tourists through town, she said. It's a "really big deal," she added.

With the prestigious designation, people will "stay longer, spend more," Frederick County Commissioner Kai J. Hagen (D) said at the ceremony. Hagen lives in Thurmont.

Magennis Wyatt agreed, saying there is now a larger likelihood of tourists taking weekend or multi-day trips along the byway instead of day trips to individual locations on the route.

Robert Black, Catoctin Mountain Orchard's president and a member of the partnership, thinks the designation will mean more customers for his store, located right off the byway on North Franklinville Road.

The orchard was the only Maryland stop on the partnership's "Whistle Stop Tour" Oct. 21 to celebrate the designation. Those in attendance were given slices of homemade pie from the orchard's bakery, and many said afterwards they'd be back for more, Black said with a wide grin. "That's what it's all about," he added.

The visitors' comments just go to show that Magennis Wyatt may have been correct in saying that people who take trips to destinations along the byway will "want to return time and again."

Although officials say the designation will bring tourists and money to the area, they also say it will serve to bring recognition to many of the county's historic sites. The area "has more American history" than any other place, Hagen said, and "giving people an identity for this region, the Journey Through Hallowed Ground, is important."

E-mail Courtney Pomeroy at cpomeroy@gazette.net.