The American Tobacco Trail (ATT) is a 22-mile long Rails-to-Trails project located in the Research Triangle region of North Carolina, running along an abandoned railroad bed originally built for the American Tobacco Company in the 1970s. The route crosses through the City of Durham, Durham County, Chatham County, and Wake County. The ATT is part of the East Coast Greenway.
Route
The ATT begins in the City of Durham across Morehead Avenue from the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. Trail users can park in a gravel parking area underneath the Durham Freeway (NC 147), except on game days. The trail is a 10-foot wide asphalt paved greenway with gravel shoulders. It is open to walkers, cyclists, rollerbladers and wheelchair users.
The American Tobacco Trail traverses 6.5 miles south through the City of Durham to its current end at NC Hwy. 54 just north of I-40. This segment of the ATT is a designated portion of the East Coast Greenway. Plans are underway to construct a pedestrian bridge across I-40 between exit 274 and 276, connecting two major portions of the ATT.
South of I-40 there is a 3-mile natural or existing surface segment that is currently open. This portion, extending from Massey Chapel Road, past the Chancellor's Ridge subdivision, under Fayetteville Road, crossing a trailhead at Scott King Road and ending at the now undecked Northeast Creek trestle, is currently under reconstruction by the Triangle Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (TRTC) under a grant from the Durham Open Space and Trails Commission. TRTC has regular 1st and 3rd Saturday workdays on this portion of trail which meet at the Scott King Road trail intersection.
Another natural or existing surface segment, running from the undecked Northeast Creek trestle, crossing O'Kelly Chapel Road, past the Old Chatham Golf Course, crossing the end of Pittard Sears Road, crossing the now undecked Panther Creek Trestle, and ending at New Hope Church Road, is also being cleared and open for foot, bike and equestrian use by TRTC. As with the Southern Durham section described in the preceding paragraph, use at your own risk.
Wake County opened, in 2003, the first 3.5 mile segment from New Hill-Olive Chapel Road to Wimberly Road. This greenway is 10-foot plus in width a granite screening trail open to hikers, cyclists, wheelchair users and equestrians. Users can access this portion of the greenway at a trailhead off New Hill-Olive Chapel Road, two miles south of US 64; as well as another smaller trailhead on Wimberly Road. The towns of Apex and Cary have plans to connect their municipal greenway systems to the ATT in the near future.
History
The American Tobacco Company was founded by J.B. Duke in 1890 and dominated the industry by acquiring the Lucky Strike Company and over 200 other rival firms. The company built processing plants and warehouses in Durham which were served by several rail lines built in 1905. Antitrust action begun in 1907 against the American Tobacco Company broke the company in 1911 into several major companies: American Tobacco Company, R. J. Reynolds, Liggett & Meyers Tobacco Company, Lorillard, and British American Tobacco. In the 1970s the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the Jordan Lake reservoir in Chatham County necessitating the relocation of the New Hope Valley rail line that connected tobacco fields near Bonsal, North Carolina to the American Tobacco Company facilities in Durham. A new rail line was built on higher ground a few miles to the east. American Tobacco left Durham in 1987 and the tracks where removed from the right-of-way. In the 1980s the Triangle Rails to Trails Conservancy (TRTC) was formed to preserve the corridor as a multi-use trail and developed a Master Plan for the ATT in 1992.
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