News

Hundreds celebrate opening of Ecusta Trail

County Manager John Mitchell tells the crowd that Ecusta Trail users in the future will ask, ‘How did this happen?’ [PHOTO BY JAY EGOLF]

By Bill Moss, Published: July 22, 2025

The community celebrated opening day of the Ecusta Trail on Friday afternoon with tributes, thank yous and a ribbon cutting followed by treats, merchandise and live music along the freshly paved six-mile segment from the Visitors Center to Horse Shoe.

A history buff, County Manager John Mitchell read from Frank FitzSimons’s account of the arrival of the railroad to Hendersonville on July 4, 1879, when townsfolk, children and a most “notable group of prominent people” laughed and cheered and followed a brass band from the train depot up a hill to chow down “at the greatest feast ever held in our town, before this or since.”

Friday’s gathering also was “an august crowd,” as Mitchell described it, that included elected leaders, volunteers and the first dreamers, who were present around 2009 when the idea was hatched.

County commission Chair Bill Lapsley recalled the first step early on —a state grant that covered Conserving Carolina’s purchase of the rail corridor from Blue Ridge Southern Railroad for $7,760,000.

“And your Henderson County commissioners, in order to expedite the project, made a bridge loan of that amount of money to close the deal because there was going to be several months away before the grant funds from Raleigh could be secured,” he said.

The next step? Money.

“Why have a railroad right-of-way if we don’t build the trail? So, the pressure was on to gain the support to actually build the trail,” Lapsley said. “Once again, with the support of all those partners, we were able to secure $11.7 million to complete this first phase, which you are about to partake. And then, since we were on a roll, we said, ‘Let’s go for the whole shebang here.’ We kept pushing, and we got another $18.7 million to finish the trail to the Henderson-Transylvania county line.”

Then, in partnership with the city of Brevard, Henderson County landed enough grant money to finish the entire 19 miles of trail.

“When it’s all done, the Henderson County section will have a 12-mile county-owned linear park developed for $30.4 million using all state funds and no county, general tax funds,” Lapsley said. “We want to take this occasion to thank all of the dreamers, the designers, the contractors, the donors, the state of North Carolina, all those that donated funds, as well as in-kind services, the government officials of the various jurisdictions and the staff people of the county and the other jurisdictions, and you the public at large for sticking with us over all these years to see this wonderful project that we are now ready to open to the public.”

‘The Ecusta what?’

Michael Edney recalled that when he announced his campaign for the board of commissioners in 2010, he had a visit immediately from two leaders of the Friends of Ecusta Trail.

“Chris Burns and Hunter Marks sold me on the vision that we are seeing today,” Edney said. “They did assign Joe Sanders and Ken Shelton to be my birddog for the next 15 years. It was slow at times; many times we didn’t think we would live to see it. Then all of a sudden, Chuck McGrady found us some money, and things have happened quickly. This is your Ecusta Trail. Enjoy it and love it.”

Rebecca McCall“So, I have a similar story,” Commissioner Rebecca McCall said. “When I announced I was going to run for commissioner in 2018, one of the first people to contact me was Dr. Ken Shelton, and with him Joe Sanders, and they said, ‘We wanna talk to you about something called the Ecusta Trail.’ And I went, ‘the what?’ So, they shared all the documentation, all the plans, all the dreams, and I was just amazed at all the work that they had put into it, and at that point, it had been about eight years since they started. Without the work that that group has done for the past 15 years, we would not be here today.”

If not for ‘the two Chucks’ …

Chris Burns stepped to the mic wearing many hats — lifelong outdoorsman, co-founder and longtime leader of the Friends of Ecusta Trail, current chair of the county Rail Trail Advisory Committee (RTAC), past campaign manager for Chuck Edwards and now Edwards’s 11^th Congressional District director.

“Since I’ve been wearing the trail hat the longest, I’m going to talk about that,” he said. “I know a lot of folks up here have talked about this project going on for about 10 years or 14 years. I know how long this project’s been going on because it started when my kids came back with me from the Virginia Creeper Trail when they were 6 years old, and they’re 26 now. Came back, and I called my good friend Chuck McGrady, who was on the commissioners at the time, and I said ‘Chuck, I’ve got this great idea.’

“And he said, ‘Well, Hunter Marks and Ken Shelton and Mike Domonkos and Mike Oliphant have also brought this up, so let’s go talk about it.’ And we went and had a beer on Main Street, we talked, and I said, ‘You know, guys, I think this is going to be something akin to a 10-year political campaign,’ and I was totally wrong. It was an 18-year political campaign.”

Early on, Burns achieved what turned out to be an inspired “get.” He courted his friend Chuck Edwards, “not even a state senator at this point,” by inviting him for a round of golf.

“We went up to Mount Mitchell and he said, ‘Well, why did you invite me out?’ And I said, ‘because I want you to join this Friends of Ecusta Trail and work with me,’” Burns recalled. “By the 15^th hole, I had him convinced to go on the Ecusta Trail board.”

In the state Senate, Edwards “secured over $8 million that really was responsible for getting this section of the trail going,” Burns said. “And when he got to Congress, he was responsible for getting $46 million in two separate grants that went to NCDOT — and that is what is going to get this trail finished.”

Although the first leg of the trail is open, the Friends, RTAC, volunteers in Brevard and others remain focused on finishing the dream.

“Is it completely finished at this point? No. Is it completely like we would want it to be right now? Nope,” Burns said. “It’s not perfect yet, but it is doggone close, and we are very, very proud of it, and we will continue to work hard every month to make it better and better and better as we go along.”

‘Outpouring of support has been overwhelming’

Mark Tooley, a Brevard resident who is the current Friends chair, traced the rail line history, from its birth in 1895, to Harry Strauss’s opening of the Ecusta Paper Mill in 1939, to the last locomotive to roll on the tracks, in 2002.

Supporters “worked to seek support from state and local governments,” he said. “As you heard, anytime a new candidate was announced, Ken and Joe showed up at their doorstep. … The outpouring of support has been overwhelming and is the reason we are here today.”

Jenn Tutor, development director of Conserving Carolina, said the conservancy was pleased but a little overwhelmed with the task of buying a rail corridor.

“It was a really complicated process — working with the railroad, dealing with federal rail banking laws and navigating a whole lot of legal details, but our team took it on, and thanks to the trust that you put in us, we made it happen,” she said. “In 2021, Conserving Carolina officially purchased the Ecusta corridor, protecting it forever as a place for the public to enjoy.”

To raise money, the conservancy and the Friends “launched the ‘Making the Dream Real’ fundraising campaign,” Tutor said. “And the response from this community was amazing. Thousands of people stepped up to make a difference. Individuals, families, local businesses, the TDA, foundations all came together to raise over $6.5 million in local funding. Your donations helped unlock major state and federal grants. You turned a dream into something real. You made this trail possible.”

‘No one had to convince’ Mayor Volk

Hendersonville Mayor Barbara Volk was ready to pedal from the start.

“No one had to convince me that we needed a rail-to-trail,” she said. “I had ridden on the Virginia Creeper Trail and the Swamp Rabbit Trail, and I kept telling myself, I hope I’m still alive when I can ride on the Ecusta Trail. Maybe I’ll be able to make it to Brevard one day.”

Next up, she said, is a hoped-for grant to fund the “Above the Mud” connection from the Ecusta trailhead to the Oklawaha Greenway.

Laurel Park Mayor Carey O’Cain praised two Laurel Park Town Commission members who worked diligently to support the trail: George Banta and Paul Hansen, who died on April 25.

“I know that Paul is up there right now looking down on this crowd and celebrating with all of us,” he said. “So, I especially wanted to thank Paul for being here with us.”

In praise of partnerships

Brevard City Council member Aaron Baker, bearing greetings from “the other side of the tracks,” emphasized the value of cooperation.

Aaron Baker“I just want to say that partnerships are really hard,” he said. “It is very, very difficult to work together on a project this big and this transformational, and it is a lot easier to get into our corners and think of our own perspectives and ignore the other side. And this would not have happened if a lot of people did not commit to those partnerships with the end goal being always the guiding light. And so please take this away today — that working together we can get so much more done. … We are not done. I want you to clear your calendars for the next two years (from now) because I will be seeing you on Main Street in Brevard.”

To wrap up, Mitchell, the county manager, thanked:

• “Autumn (Radcliff) and Janna (Bianculli) from our planning department — $70 million” in awards thanks to their grant writing. “What an incredible job. You should be very proud of what you’ve accomplished.”
• County Engineer Marcus Jones: “Marcus got this done on top of all of the other things he has had on his plate” post-Helene.
• Assistant County Manager Chris Todd, “the universal fixer on this job.”
• Former County Manager Steve Wyatt, who “deserves half the credit and two-thirds of the blame” for the trail, former Assistant County Manager Amy Brantley, Hendersonville Mayor pro tem Jennifer Hensley and City Manager John Connet.

“I believe that for the next 200 years or so, there will be people who are down on this trail and will think to themselves, ‘How did this happen?’ Well, we all know how it happened,” Mitchell said. “It took a lot of hard work, and I’m immensely proud of that.”