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America’s Trails


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Tapping Into Opportunity: RTC’s Strategic Priorities
January 11, 2024
RTC has been focused on building a nation connected by trails, spreading trails across the country to bring new potential to communities.
Happy multiracial women having fun embracing each outside - Photo courtesy Getty Images
Blog
Awaiting Takeoff: The Wright Brothers’ Biking Legacy
December 04, 2023
On a gray North Carolina beach, 120 years ago this December, Wright Brothers completed the first powered flight of a heavier-than-air aircraft.
Wilbur Wright working in the Wright brothers’ Dayton, Ohio, bicycle shop in 1897
Blog
For Some 60 Years, Peru, Indiana, Was America’s “Circus City”
October 25, 2023
Peru is known as the Circus City or the Circus Capital of the World for a big reason. It really was.
Hagenbeck-Wallace main entrance to circus | Photo by M.D. McCarter, courtesy International Circus Hall of Fame. Used with permission.
Blog
End of the Line: How Timber and Train Tracks Transformed the Olympic Peninsula
October 25, 2023
This History Along the Great American Rail-Trail® feature explores the timber industry and creation of two railroads on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula in the early 1900s. The late-1918 completion of the Spruce Railroad, which was meant to aid the war effort, led to a national scandal.
U.S. Spruce Production Division splicing an eye into cable during a logging operation | Photo courtesy Bert Kellogg Collection of the North Olympic Library System
Blog
A Milestone for the Mickelson Trail: Celebrating 25 Years
September 13, 2023
The 109-mile George S. Mickelson Trail, named after the South Dakota governor who championed the trail before dying in a plane crash in 1993, was officially dedicated in the midst of much fanfare in 1998.
George S. Mickelson Trail at the Deadwood Trailhead | Photo courtesy South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks
Blog
A Celebration of Completion for Vermont’s Lamoille Valley Rail Trail
July 17, 2023
After more than two decades of effort and an infusion of cash from the state legislature in 2020, Vermont’s Lamoille Valley Rail Trail (LVRT) is finally complete.
Lamoille Valley Rail Trail in Wolcott, Vermont | Photo courtesy Vermont Agency of Transportation
Blog
Meet the 2023 Hall of Fame Nominees
July 06, 2023
We need a little help picking which trail should take the title for 2023. We’ve narrowed the list down to three stellar nominees.
Graphic by RTC
Blog
California’s Mill Valley/Sausalito Multiuse Pathway
June 13, 2023
It’s a popular route for children heading to school, a place for retirees to get in a morning walk and a crucial link for bicycle commuters on their way to work. As any of its numerous advocates will tell you, coastal California’s Mill Valley/Sausalito Multiuse Pathway more than lives up to its multiuse name.
California's Mill Valley-Sausalito Multiuse Pathway | Photo courtesy Marin County Bicycle Coalition
Blog
Remembering the Chinese Forerunners Who Built the Northern Pacific
May 05, 2023
On Aug. 22, 1883, the final tracks of the Northern Pacific Railway were laid when a Chinese crew from the West met an Eastern crew of mostly Irish and Slavic workers near Inde­pendence Creek, Montana.
A Chinese railroad worker on the developing Northern Pacific line in 1905 | Photo courtesy University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections
Blog
Nevada’s River Mountains Loop Trail
May 05, 2023
A few miles into the 12-foot-wide trail, towering snowcapped Spring Mountains to the northwest dwarf the Vegas Strip’s cityscape. Since 2012, it’s been a destination for locals and visitors—cyclists, runners, inline skaters and walkers. There’s even a 15-mile parallel equestrian trail.
View of Lake Mead along the River Mountains Loop Trail | Photo by John Holman