Right now, in the middle of the 21st-century bike boom, the rail-trail movement is the most successful way to build trails for bikers and walkers. But it’s certainly not the first; many other plans for trail building have come and gone.

The railroad used to wind through the canyon as part of the Southern Pacific Railroad's California-Oregon line, which was marketed in the early 1900s as "The Road to a Thousand Wonders."