Jun 14, 2018 8 min read

Jessica Staley of Millsboro is a regular on the Greene River Trail.

“It’s beautiful here, being along the river,” Staley says as she walked the trail with her two children one morning in early May, after the first few consecutive warm days made it appear spring had finally arrived. “This is usually where we come for exercise and for a nature walk, for the kids’ education.”

Staley and her children, Aubrie, 7, and Braedyn, 8, frequently see chipmunks, woodpeckers, deer and other wildlife during their walks along the trail.

“We love it,” she says. It’s much better than walking the roads near her home. “It’s just safer bringing the kids here; we have never had an issue on the trail.”

A handful of others interviewed that morning also say they are regulars who have either walked or bicycled the trail for years.

Though there are other hiking and biking trails in the area, Jim Karol, 61, of Malden, says he prefers the Greene River Trail, where he comes to sometimes meet up with old friends.

Karol was walking the trail that morning with his buddy, George Marinkovich of Centerville.

“It’s nice. It makes me feel good,” Karol says. “You get in these morning walks and it’s almost spiritual with the dew coming off the grass and the steam coming off the river.”

The Greene River Trail follows an abandoned railroad bed along the western bank of the Monongahela River. Its crushed stone surface now stretches 5.2 miles from the northern trail head at the Greene Cove Yacht Club off Route 88 in Jefferson Township to the site of the former Arensburg Ferry on River Road near Crucible, Cumberland Township.

Plans are now in the works to extend the trail another 2.2 miles, from the ferry south to the Jessup Boat Club property, near the intersection of Jacobs Ferry and Stringtown roads.

The idea of developing a trail on the abandoned Monongahela Railroad Co. rail bed, from Greene Cove to the former Nemacolin Mine, a distance of about 13 miles, was first considered about 20 years ago. At the time, a national rails-to-trail movement was picking up steam. Locally, a trail was viewed as a means to provide a new recreational resource for county residents and to increase tourism, perhaps giving a little economic boost to the small communities along the river.

“You needed something like this to jump start interest in living in those river towns, which were previously old coal towns,” says county Commissioner Dave Coder, who during his first term in office in the late 1990s was among those who first met to discuss building a trail. “This was one project that it seemed everyone came together on.”

Among those involved in the initial discussions were the commissioners: Coder, the late John Gardner and Farley Toothman, now a Greene County Court judge; state and federal elected officials; Art Boyle, owner of the Greene Cove Yacht Club; and Linda Boxx, director of the Katherine Mabis McKenna Foundation.

Though everyone played a role in the project, Boyle’s and Boxx’s contributions were particularly noteworthy, Coder says. Boyle owned the property on which the first 1.1 miles of trail would be built; Boxx’s foundation provided initial funding to get the project moving.

A public meeting on the trail was held in October 1998 in Rices Landing. “It was very positive,” Coder says. “All the pros and cons were sorted out and from that time on the county was 100 percent behind the project.”

Construction of the first 1.1 mile, which ran from Greene Cove to the end of Boyle’s property near the former Gateway Mine tipple, started in 1999 and was completed in the spring of the following year. Much of the work was done by crews from the county, state Department of Transportation and prison inmates from SCI-Greene.

A formal dedication was held on May 23, 2000.

Work had also begun planning the next phases, which would bring the trail to Rices Landing, the site of a second trail head, and then onto its existing terminus.

It was not an easy project, Coder says. “It was difficult, first of all, finding all the funding and then getting a start with the rights of way; it took a lot of negotiations (with the property owners) to get it there,” he says.

The Consolidation Coal Co., which owned riverfront land on either side of Rices Landing, initially refused to provide the county with a right of way for the trail, but eventually got on board, Coder says.

The county also obtained a right of way from RAG American Coal Co., precursor of Contura Energy.

State and federal grant money has been used to fund “the bulk” of construction on the new phases, though the county did expand its recreation department, which does clearing work on new trail sections and handles trail maintenance.

The county also was “very fortunate” to have the political clout to get grants for the work, according to Coder. At the beginning, at the federal level, there was Congressman Frank Mascara, followed by Congressman Jack Murtha. On the state level, there was Rep. Bill DeWeese, once speaker of the house, and state Sen. J. Barry Stout.

“We were very aggressive with the grants,” Coder says.

The second phase, which was started in 2001, took the trail about 2.7 miles from the end of Boyle’s property to Consol’s Dilworth Mine. It included development of the second trail head in Rices Landing.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the completion of that segment was held Nov. 29, 2001.

Work to reach the current terminus at the ferry, considered the second part of phase two, was a little more tricky, however, because it had to skirt the Dilworth Mine, which closed in 2002, and pass through the abandoned Crucible Mine.

Work on that section, about 1.4 miles in length, started in 2007 and was finished in early 2008.

“What took so long was we had to reclaim the Crucible Mine,” says J. Allen Blaker, director of the county department of parks and recreation. “The Crucible Mine was a dangerous place to put a trail through because of the buildings and the mine shafts that had settled over the years.”

Nine mine buildings, including the preparation plant and one storage bin about five stories tall, had to come down, he says. Four mine shafts also had to be opened and re-sealed and large waste-coal piles reclaimed.

It took time and coordination with the state Department of Environmental Protection. “Everything was under the auspices of DEP; we had to work with DEP above ground and below ground,” Blaker says.

Planning for the next section of trail, phase three, from the ferry to Jessup Boat Club began earlier but also took longer than expected because of lengthy negotiations with various property owners for rights of way, Blaker says.

County crews have already begun clearing and grubbing the property and cleaning storm drains installed when the railroad was initially built. The county also has applied for a $400,000 grant from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources to construct the third phase.

The county will know whether it has received the grant this fall. “We feel cautiously optimistic it will be funded,” Blaker says. If all goes as planned, work could begin on the third phase some time next year.

The county hopes the trail will eventually be extended the additional 5.5 miles to Nemacolin, where the rail bed ends. Blaker believes the extension will happen though many issues, including negotiations with property owners for rights of way, will have to be resolved.

The ultimate goal is to connect to the Sheep Skin Trail near Point Marion, which is part of a national trail system. But even at its present length, the trail has been a success.

“It is very well used,” Blaker says. “We have walkers on the trail before daylight in the morning and coming off the trail with flashlights at night.”

Many people who use the trail also come from outside the county. Blaker’s office constantly receives calls from people from Morgantown, W.Va., Pittsburgh and elsewhere, seeking information on the trail.

“Every time I go down there, I see people on the trail,” Coder says. “It really enhances the quality of life for a lot of folks who live along the river.”

The trail also draws people to the county, who may stop and spend money at local stores or restaurants, he says. And it has helped improve the values of nearby properties.

“It’s just been a huge asset to Greene County,” Coder says. “I get more comments on the trail than I do just about anything else.”