By Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com
There are railtowns, canaltowns, rivertowns, and to avoid the fate of becoming ghosttowns with the loss of railroads, canal and riverboats, and factories, many of these places are looking to become Trail Towns, serving the thousands streaming by on the leisure trails that have replaced the rail lines and towpaths.
The trails are what bring people to these towns, revitalizing their economy and community, as our Rails to Trails Conservancy group of media people reporting on the progress of the 3,700-mile-long Great American Rail-Trail discover.
As we set out on a newly repaved portion of the Ohio-Erie trail, we meet a couple from Wallisburg, Ontario, Canada. They spark our attention considering the plummeting (as much as 25%) in Canadian visits to the USA. What brought them, we ask. “Biking.” Why here? “Well, we did the Erie Canalway [353 miles from Buffalo to Albany, New York], and the Pittsburgh to DC [350 miles on the Great Allegheny Passage and C&O, the most complete stage of the Great American Rail-Trail so far], so this was next,” said the couple who, we learn, got engaged on a bike trip.
They never book a hotel more than four hours in advance (and estimate they are spending $200/day), but check out their app to see what is convenient to where they are on the trail. “We don’t have a plan,” Mike said. “It’s easy to get services.” In Columbus, they stayed in a Rooms Plus just off the Ohio-Erie trail and close to the stadium where they took in a Blue Jackets baseball game. They also remarked that in contrast to the hostility shown by their homeland by the White House, they find “the people of America are wonderful,” adding they frequently are offered free beer and pop when locals learn they have come from Canada. “People are good.”
They are taking six days to bike the Ohio to Erie Trail, that connects the Ohio River to Lake Erie, 326 miles from Cleveland to Columbus to Cincinnati.
“Our mission is to build, maintain, and promote this world-class trail corridor, encouraging outdoor recreation, healthy lifestyles, sustainable transportation, and a deeper appreciation for Ohio’s people, history, and natural beauty,” the website exclaims (https://www.ohiotoerietrail.org/).
The trail – one of more than 150 trails that are being linked together to create the Great American Rail-Trail from Washington DC to Washington State – is 245 miles paved, 49 crushed stone, 20 miles on-road and 10-miles on street. Where we start our ride and meet this couple has been newly repaved, and just behind us, we see where a new section of the trail is being laid, replacing having to go on-road.
Soon we come to a most scenic and interesting section: it goes through an Amish community and we find ourselves sharing the path with horse-drawn carriages (the trail was purposely made wide enough to accommodate the carriages). Our rest stop is just before a marvelously named “Bridge of Dreams” covered bridge, where Raymond Weaver treats us to freshly baked and utterly divine pretzels from his family’s Weaver’s Farm & Pretzel shop. (“Better than New York’s,” I tell him to his delight.)
At Gambier, on the Kokosing Gap Trail, we come to an absolutely magnificent steam locomotive, train and red caboose (a volunteer repaints it every summer). I feel like a giddy kid climbing up into the cab and ringing the brass bell.
I have been thinking that the creation of these rail-trails that connect and build communities reminds me of how “Johnny Appleseed” went from town to town planting apple seeds, and, amazingly, as we enter Mount Vernon, I see a historic marker that notes Johnny “Appleseed” Chapman had property and apple orchards in this very place.
I am so intrigued, I learn from the Knox County Historical Society, that “as a young man, Johnny traveled through New York and Pennsylvania in the late 1700’s, coming into Ohio during the early 1800’s. He made it his life’s work to plant apple trees so that the soon-to-arrive pioneers would have a plentiful supply of apples at their new home. He set up his nurseries at strategic spots so that he could sell or trade his young trees to the newcomers and then move on to new unsettled areas. Many of these orchards were established throughout central Ohio, especially around Mount Vernon, Coshocton, Mansfield, Ashland and Wooster.
“He is said to have voted in Mount Vernon’s first election about 1806. Until 1828 he owned the lot now occupied by the tire store at 401 South Main St., as well as the adjacent lot toward the Kokosing River. When he needed a new supply of apple seeds, he would walk from Mount Vernon to Pittsburgh, then fill several canoes with sacks of seeds, lash the canoes together, then travel down the Ohio River to Marietta, up the Muskingum River to Zanesville, then up the Walhonding and Kokosing back to Mount Vernon – quite a trip, indeed!”
The story touches me greatly – his life was about community and sustainability, lessons that we can certainly apply today.
It is fun to discover Mount Vernon, one of the first five Trail Towns designated by Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission.
We are entranced by how charming Mount Vernon is and visit the Woodward Opera House, the “oldest authentic operating opera house in the country” (built in 1851, the balcony added in the 1880s, restored in 1997 and opened 2019, it has a certain percentage of original architecture to qualify), where a history lecture is going on. We overnight in an authentically reconstructed Grand Hotel, owned by Nazarene University.
It’s about repurposing not just obsolete railroads, canalways, depots and ports, but the buildings and structures, factories and warehouses – that instead of demolishing decaying wrecks are being reclaimed, repurposed and rebranded so they benefit the community, and in the process, build community.
So just as we head out from Mount Vernon on the Heart of Ohio trail (a16.9-mile segment of the Ohio-Erie Trail), bound for Columbus (a 50-mile ride on trails that are part of the Ohio to Erie Trail), we come to Ariel Foundation Park, a trailside park developed from an old glass factory that manufactured car windshields. The 280-ft. tall chimney stack that served PPG from 1951 until it closed in 1976 has been repurposed instead of being demolished, and turned into a marvelous attraction, the Rastin Observation Tower.
You climb a protected spiral staircase, 224 steps up to the deck 140 ft. above ground (boy do you feel it), for an incredible view of the countryside. There is an impressive entranceway constructed that prevents children from accessing on their own. It is truly an experience.
A marker notes that the Heart of Ohio Trail was built on the CANC railroad line that ran from Cleveland to Columbus through Mt. Vernon, the TNOC railroad that ran from Toledo to central Ohio. The Centerburg train station was finished in 1873, connecting the two rail lines. Use of the tracks ended between 1960-1970. The A trail committee began purchasing the railroad line in 2000 and finally acquired it in 2005.
We come to a monument that marks the highpoint of the Heart of Ohio Trail, at 1,285 ft. (they joke that it is all downhill from here and that is more or less the case). Soon after, we come to Centerburg, where a sign on the trail marks the mid-point of the 326-mile-long Ohio-Erie Trail.
We are greeted by many of the activists who are turning Centerburg into one of Ohio’s first five “Trail Towns.” Centerburg received a $1 million Transportation Alternatives Grant that will pay for a short connector into its town center so that cyclists (some 40,000 pass this point, which they know because of counters in the pavement) who might otherwise just pose for a photo, will spend time and money in the shops and services catering to the visitors.
Melinda Vonstein, Greenways Planning Studio Lead for the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, has been instrumental in creating Ohio’s Trail Towns program, that launched this year with the first five towns and next year will add five more.
She tells us that several towns came to the Commission to ask to develop Trail Towns program.
Columbus’ Trail Towns program was modeled after the Great Allegheny Passage’s created by The Progress Fund (https://www.trailtowns.org/guide/). The group worked for four years to come up with a framework that would suit Ohio.
The Trail Town Program® was created by The Progress Fund more than 17 years ago and was the first to test and prove the idea of multiplying the economic impact along trails like the C&O and Great Allegheny Passage. Visitors are an economic engine: every $1 spent by a visitor has a $3 impact on the local economy.
“It starts by thinking regionally: a world-class trail needs amenities along its entire stretch, and towns working together can create a much broader impact. Not every project looks the same. Every region has its own strengths and challenges. But we share the insights and lessons we’ve learned along the way in our free Trail Town guide” (www.trailtowns.org/guide).
[Indeed, even the ghost towns are getting a new lease on life because of rail trails. There is a Ghost Town Tour Trail – 54 miles long featuring a 32-mile continuous loop from Blacklick, PA to Ebensburg, PA, and 20-mile C and I Extension – where a new Creekside Cabin opened in Strongstown, assisted by Pennsylvania’s The Progress Fund, which is now boosted by AirBnB tours and can be booked through www.airbnb.com/h/creeksidecabinsgtt (https://www.cambriaconservationrecreation.com/ghost-town-trail/)]
Ohio’s first Trail Towns are in the outskirts of Columbus, the 14th largest city in the US and the largest city on the Great American Rail-Trail. The city is working to create links and connections to the trails, including adding bus services with bike racks so people can shuttle to and from the trails instead of doubling back and a new bike trail map has curated routes accessed on Linkus through the Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA).
They are working to create their own Trail Towns site but for now, information is available on CentralOhioGreenways.com.
For more information on the Great American Rail-Trail, visit: https://www.railstotrails.org/site/greatamericanrailtrail/
Next: ‘It Was a Choice’: Columbus, Ohio Allocates $250 Million to Build 150 Miles of Biking, Walking Trails
See also:
Imagine Biking 3,700 Miles Across the USA on The Great American Rail-Trail
Grassroots Volunteerism Builds the Great American Rail-Trail
‘One Mile at a Time.’ New Trails Are Links in Building the 3,700-Mile Great American Rail-Trail
__________________
© 2026 Travel Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. Visit goingplacesfarandnear.com, longislandpress.com/category/vacation-travel.com and travelwritersmagazine.com/TravelFeaturesSyndicate/. Blogging at goingplacesnearandfar.wordpress.com and moralcompasstravel.info. Visit instagram.com/going_places_far_and_near. X: @TravelFeatures Threads: @news_and_photo_features ‘Like’ us atfacebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures. Send comments/questions to FamTravLtr@aol.com.
