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Focus Term: Featured Magazine Articles


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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
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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
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Destination: Tucson’s Chuck Huckelberry Loop
July 21, 2023
The Chuck Huckelberry Loop offers 155 miles of paved pathways and bike lanes, six distinct sections and four communities near Tucson.
Views of the surrounding Santa Catalina Mountains serve as a backdrop along much of the Cañada del Oro River Park Trail in Oro Valley. The 11-mile route makes up one section of the Chuck Huckelberry Loop in Tucson. | Photo by Cindy Barks
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Remembering Franco Harris—Trails and Bicycling Advocate
June 15, 2023
Franco Harris, who died in December 2022 at the age of 72, became an important advocate for trails and cycling, in particular. And he did so as a member of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC) Board of Directors from 1992 to 1997.
Franco Harris supported the trails and bicycling community in many ways, including as a board member for Rails-to-Trails Conservancy from 1992 to 1997, and as the owner of the Pittsburgh Power bike racing team in the early 1990s. | Photo courtesy Governor Tom Wolf | CC BY 2.0
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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
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Trail Moments | Adventure for All: Advocating for Accessible Outdoor Spaces
May 04, 2023
People with disabilities also like a spectrum of experiences and—especially with all this new technology—are capable of a wide variety.
Quinn Brett | Photo by Jimmy McAllan
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Exploring America’s E-Bike Evolution
May 04, 2023
Now it’s younger families, maybe zero-car families that are using cargo e-bikes as a car replacement or commuters trying to get from A to B in the most efficient way they can.
Photo by Stephen Matera
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10 Great Destinations Along Missouri’s Future Rock Island Trail
March 16, 2023
Below are some of our favorite destinations along the Rock Island Trail, which is undergoing trail development and is not yet open for use.
This Caboose greets visitors where the Katy Trail and the Rock Island Trail intersect in Windsor. | Photo courtesy Missouri Rock island Trail Inc.
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Of History and Industry: The Legacy of the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail
March 14, 2023
“This towpath has made it so much easier for people to feel comfortable riding their bikes to a lot of places,” DevahD said. “You can shop off the towpath. You can eat off the towpath. You can play off the towpath. It can’t get any better than this.”
Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath | Photo by Jason Cohn
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Industrial Heartland History: Scott’s Run—the Most Diverse Coal Camp in America
February 02, 2023
Take a step inside the Scott’s Run Museum in Osage, West Virginia, on a Saturday afternoon, and you’re in for a story time like no other.
Once the most thriving coal district in the U.S., Scott’s Run fell on hard times in the 1920s. Residents who were not allowed to move to the nearby New Deal community of Arthurdale banded together, forming workers alliances and cooperatives to survive. (1937) | Photo by Lewis Hine