The sawdust trail or the sawdust circuit consisted of a series of temporary buildings or tents used by itinerant ministers for revival meetings.Random House Dictionary Tabernacle floors were covered with sawdust to damp the noise of shuffling feet (as well as for its pleasant smell and its ability to hold down the dust of dirt floors), and coming forward during the invitation became known as "hitting the sawdust trail."Firstenberger, 37; McLoughlin, 97; Dorsett, 91-92. The term was first used in a Sunday campaign in Bellingham, Washington, in 1910. Apparently, "hitting the sawdust trail" had first been used by loggers in the Pacific Northwest to describe following home a trail of previously dropped sawdust through an uncut forest — a metaphor for coming from, in Nell Sunday's words, "a lost condition to a saved condition."
Billy Sunday repeatedly used the metaphor throughout his career. He told his audiences to "hit the sawdust trail" and give their lives to Jesus. At his revival meetings, "trail hitters" would walk up the center aisle strewn with sawdust and shake Sunday's hand as a public manifestation of their conversion experience.Randall Balmer, Encyclopedia of evangelicalism 2002 p 506
See also Chitlin' Circuit Borscht Belt
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