Alabama’s Chief Ladiga Trail: June 2025 Trail of the Month
Winding its way through the historic communities of Anniston, Weaver, Jacksonville and Piedmont in eastern Alabama, the Chief Ladiga Trail offers views of the farms, forests, wetlands and mountainous terrain of Calhoun and Cleburne counties. But if this gentle and welcoming paved path could speak, it would also share tales of people—the 30,000 people who traverse the trail each year and the people who made the trail possible.
“It’s a huge asset to promote a healthier lifestyle because it’s easier to be active when you have it right here out your back door,” said Brittney Reaves, public information officer for the Calhoun County Commission. “We’ve had people from all over come just to use our trail, and I believe that says a lot about our county.”
About The Trail
Alabama’s Chief Ladiga Trail is a 39.2 mile asphalt rail-trail in Calhoun and Cleburne counties. You can walk, bike, inline skate and horseback ride on the trail, which is wheelchair accessible.
Decades of Impact
Just this past April, the city of Anniston celebrated the completion of a 6.5-mile extension of the Chief Ladiga Trail into its downtown, a long-awaited development.
“Twenty years ago, when I started the shop, I knew the Ladiga Trail was coming to town,” said Patrick Wigley, owner of the Anniston bike repair shop Wigs Wheels. He spent that time doing all he could to support the area’s trail enthusiasts, from helping out with cycling events to shuttling riders who came by his shop to Michael Tucker Park, the southern terminus of the Chief Ladiga Trail before the extension was put in place.
The Northeast Alabama Bicycle Association (NEABA), a group that advocates for cycling infrastructure and organizes group rides and other events, also opened its headquarters in downtown Anniston in 2019 in anticipation of the Chief Ladiga Trail making its way to the center of the city.
“I wanted it to be like a coffee shop where you walk in and you just want to plop down and stay a while,” explained Brooke Nelson, who serves on NEABA’s board. “Anniston, in our area, has become a cycling mecca, and the Ladiga Trail is a very integral part of that.”
The trail now spans 39.5 miles from Anniston to the state border, where it connects to Georgia’s Silver Comet Trail. Together, they span over 100 miles, forming one of the longest paved pathways in the United States and, as one of the South’s most iconic trail routes, were inducted as a pair into Rails to Trails Conservancy’s Hall of Fame in 2009.
“I think it’s a nice feather in the cap,” said Jackson Hodges, Anniston’s director of public relations, speaking of the new extension for which the city invested $7.2 million. “It was an expensive project for a community like ours to take on, but we knew the benefits it could have, so we wanted to give it our best shot.”
It was a full-circle moment for Alabama’s first rail-trail, which has had a noticeable impact on the region in the three decades since its development.
A study by Jacksonville State University’s Center for Economic Development and Business Research found that the Chief Ladiga Trail had an economic impact of $2.2 million for Calhoun County in 2023 alone.
When the study of the trail’s economic impact was released, Wigley noticed other entrepreneurs scooping up buildings in Anniston. “A lot of the other towns that the trail goes through don’t have the infrastructure we have,” he explained. “We have a hotel and a bike shop and restaurants and museums and other stuff to do off the bike, stuff that’s now within riding distance of the trail.”
Neal Gladden, owner of Rocket City Trikes in Huntsville, said he opened a second location in Piedmont, Ladiga Trail Trikes, because of the growing popularity of the trail, noting, “Our riders really enjoy the improvements of the trail such as the recent re-paving project and the extension into downtown Anniston.”
People coming through Jacksonville on the trail can also swing by the Public Square and pop into the Tulip Cafe for coffee or Mad Hatter Cupcakes for a sweet treat. And in Piedmont, the recently opened Pinhoti Pizza Company is located at the intersection of the trail and Main Street—right at the very heart of the community.
“The impact has been huge in terms of recreation and visitation,” said Audrey Maxwell, tourism director for the Calhoun County Area Chamber and Visitors Center. “You have people from all over the country utilizing the Chief Ladiga Trail.”
Creating Community
Piedmont is where the story of the Chief Ladiga Trail began; it was a small town with a big vision. The idea for the rail-trail took shape in the early 1990s after an unused CSX rail corridor, running from Anniston through Calhoun and Cleburne counties to Georgia, became available.
“I’m an outdoors man, and I like trains, too, but my biggest thing was I wanted to see how we were going to be able to preserve this corridor because once that property is gone, it’s gone,” said Tommy Allison, city planner for Piedmont at the time.
Converting the rail corridor into a trail would require money that this rural town didn’t have—at least not yet. The rail-trail project gained momentum when Piedmont and Calhoun County Commission received federal support from an Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) grant to fund the first 8.9 miles. Later came grants for Jacksonville and Cleburne County. The final piece of the puzzle fell into place after the City of Weaver received ISTEA grant money to build their 2.5-mile section and complete the connections to the other trail sections.
Another challenge was that there was some local opposition to the project. “A lot of the naysayers said that we were destroying their property because it was going to open it up to vandals,” Allison recalled. But he was able to share research with them showing that trails can boost property values and make the areas less susceptible to vandalism.
Many of the trail’s opponents eventually became advocates, Allison said. One story he loves to share is of a woman who was once adamantly against the trail but eventually started using it and discovered the sense of community it could create. “She had never met her neighbor in 35 years,” Allison said, “until the trail was developed.”
Rail-Trails: Southeast Guidebook
Want to experience the Chief Ladiga Trail or some of the other great trail destinations in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina? You’ll find maps, helpful details and beautiful photos for more than 70 multiuse trails across these four states in our Rail-Trails: Southeast Guidebook, available in our online Trail Shop.
Opportunities for Connection
Today, a trek down the Chief Ladiga Trail offers glimpses of the past, such as the restored Jacksonville Train Depot that now serves as an event space for local groups and residents. Farther down the path, the Piedmont Historical Society’s Southern Railroad Depot Museum shares the history of Piedmont through art, cultural displays, artifacts and videos. And teachers at nearby schools, like Kitty Stone Elementary in Jacksonville, take students out on the trail to enjoy nature and activities like leaf identification.
In Jacksonville, the trail passes right through the Jacksonville State University campus, where Rusty Nall, assistant professor of psychology at JSU and faculty advisor for the JSU cycling club, said he often sees students using the trail for walking, rollerblading, skateboarding and exploring nearby parks.
JSU is also home to the Trail Science Institute, which provides educational opportunities for students to complete research to improve and transform trails. For this work, the institute partners with various agencies, such the steering committee for Sweet Trails Alabama, an initiative seeking to build a trail network connecting Alabama’s natural and historic destinations across all 67 counties.
“It’s interesting to have these big, huge trail networks with all this interconnectedness,” said Ross Martin, Trail Science Institute director and assistant professor of chemistry and geosciences. “When things are so connected, it lets a lot more people get access to parts of that network.”
This statewide trails plan includes a partnership with the Alabama Tourism Department for a “Year of Alabama Trails” public awareness campaign throughout 2025, which celebrates the positive impact of the state’s trails on tourism, conservation, quality of life and economic development.
“In our area, that big master plan, with all that connectivity, is really centered around the Chief Ladiga Trail,” said Martin. “The Ladiga Trail is what anchors this big idea.”
A Place for All
Each year, long-distance skateboarders take to the trail for the Chief Ladiga–Silver Comet Sk8 Challenge. Carlos Montalvo, director of the challenge, shares that the event wouldn’t be possible without this trail pair. “There’s no other trail system like it in the U.S.—you have the longest paved trail with multiple access points,” he said. “This is the most unique event that I know about across the world.”
The trail is also popular with runners with Anniston named a “Runner Friendly Community” by the Road Runners Club of America thanks to the efforts of the Anniston Runners Club. Club officer Hayley Long hopes the new Anniston extension of the Chief Ladiga Trail will bring even more runners and running events to the area.
Currently, the Chief Ladiga Trail hosts one of the annual Zombie Trail Races, where participants choose between a 100-mile, 50K or 25K race. The mostly flat trail is an ideal route for such a lengthy race, but Long shared that it’s the people of the area that make such a grueling race doable.
“One year when I was doing the 50K, I had about 8 miles to go, and I was crying and could barely walk when this guy came up behind me on a bike,” she recalled. “He said, ‘Ma’am, are you alright?’ and I said, ‘Yes, I’m just very pissed off.’”
Much to her surprise, Long turned around to discover that the man was the chief of police of the City of Weaver. “He walked with me for half a mile, talked to me, and helped me through it,” she said. “You wouldn’t get that kind of support anywhere else but on the Ladiga Trail.”
Related Links
Trail Facts
Name: Chief Ladiga Trail
Used railroad corridor: The trail was built along the site of the former Seaboard/CSX Railroad, which connected Atlanta to Birmingham.
Trail website: City of Anniston
Length: 39.5 miles
Counties: Calhoun, Cleburne
Start point/end point: The Chief Ladiga Trail begins at the Alabama-Georgia state line and extends into downtown Anniston.
Surface type: Asphalt
Grade: The trail is relatively flat but will slowly gain around 700 feet in elevation as you move from west to east. The grade is mostly gentle (estimated under 5%).
Uses: Walking, running, bicycling and inline skating; stroller and wheelchair accessible. In Cleburne County, the trail can also accommodate equestrians.
Difficulty: The trail is considered a moderately challenging trail, as it’s a paved trail that’s mostly flat with gentle inclines. The sections with the most significant elevation changes are between Piedmont and the Georgia state line, where it rises from 680 feet to 1,000 feet above sea level. However, even this elevation change is not considered steep by most cyclists because it’s spread out over about 9 miles. When exiting Piedmont and moving toward the state line, use caution as there are areas where the trail surface is bumpier because of root damage.
Getting there: The two closest major airports are the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (about 60 miles from the south end of the trail) and the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (about 95 miles from the south end of the trail). The Anniston Multimodal Center (126 W. Fourth St.), which serves Amtrak, is located adjacent to the trail’s terminus in Anniston.
Access and parking: From south to north, parking for the Chief Ladiga Trail is available at:
- Michael Tucker Park, 6514 Weaver Road, Anniston
- Elwell Park, 500 Anniston St., Weaver
- Chief Ladiga Landing, 7201 Alexandria-Jacksonville Hwy., Jacksonville
- Ladiga Trail Park Gardens, 916 Francis St. W., Jacksonville
- Germania Springs Park, 540 Roy Webb Road, Jacksonville
- Eubanks Welcome Center, 202 Dailey St., Piedmont
To navigate the area with an interactive GIS map, and to see more photos, user reviews and ratings, plus loads of other trip-planning information, visit TrailLink™, RTC’s free trail-finder website.
Rentals: Wigs Wheels (1229 Noble St., Anniston), located about a half-mile from the southern end of the trail, offers bicycles for rent. Jacksonville University’s Gamecock Cycles, located at the University Recreation & Fitness Center (119 Beck Circle, Jacksonville) also offers low-cost rentals to students and members of the university’s recreation center.
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