Georgia’s Firefly Trail Shines Brightly
Dodd Ferrelle looks forward to the day he can bike from his home in Winterville to Athens with his boys for an exciting Bulldogs football game at the University of Georgia. A mere 3-mile gap separates the Firefly Trail in his community from the section in the neighboring college town—but not for long. The connection between these towns is just one of many to come as the Firefly Trail’s planned 39-mile route is steadily realized with “model mile” sections that demonstrate the pathway’s potential and generate enthusiasm in each community. Several model miles have already opened in a handful of the communities along the route between Athens and Union Point in northeast Georgia.
“Neighbors are sometimes meeting on the trail for the very first time even though they have lived in the same city for 20 years together but just never knew each other,” said Ferrelle, who is serving his third term as Winterville’s mayor from an office that overlooks the pathway. “When you talk about strengthening a community, there’s just nothing that I’ve seen like it.”
Mark Ralston, past president and current board member with Firefly Trail, Inc. (the nonprofit that’s spearheading the project), said he’s talked to many residents who live in Winterville and work in the much larger Athens who say they plan to commute by bike once the gap is filled, and many Athens residents already use the trail within their own community to reach the campus or downtown.
Just this summer, Athens-Clarke County opened bidding on the gap’s construction, which is expected to be wrapped up by the end of 2025; once completed, the Firefly Trail will wind under Winterville’s oak canopy, traverse countryside dotted with picturesque ponds and roll into Athens, where a 2.9-mile stretch is currently open, including the stunning Trail Creek bridge, better known as the “Murmur” trestle after being featured on alt-rock band R.E.M.’s album of that name.
“There must have been 500 people out there—it was a huge community celebration,” said Ralston, a longtime resident of Athens who fondly remembers last year’s ribbon cutting for the structure. Combining dramatic steel arches with soaring timbers that recall the historic trestle, the new bridge serves as a showpiece for the burgeoning trail. “I teared up standing there on that beautiful bridge looking down at the places where I had for years been looking up saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we had that bridge?’”
This article was originally developed for the Fall 2024 issue of Rails to Trails magazine. It has been reposted here in an edited format. Subscribe to read more articles about remarkable rail-trails and trail networks while also supporting our work. Have comments on this article? Email the magazine.
Trail Spark
Built along a former stretch of the Georgia Railroad that dates back to 1841, the Firefly Trail gets its name from the embers that would flicker into the sky from the wood-burning locomotive engines. In addition to the name, the surrounding communities are paying homage to the trail’s rail heritage by refurbishing three depots along the line—in Winterville, Crawford and Maxeys—that are planned to include amenities for people using the trail. For locals, it’s a positive rebirth for these once-thriving railroad towns that saw a steep decline after the trains stopped running in the 1980s.
For many of these communities, the old transportation route also provides a critical new thoroughfare. “It’s the only trail in the town—and, actually, the only trail in the county,” explained Warren Gilson, the mayor of Maxeys, which has a population around 200 and is centrally located along the trail route. “It’s 1.1 miles, and we have no sidewalks in town either. The trail has just been a godsend for this community in many respects because it’s provided a place for the children to learn to bicycle, and a place for people to walk and run. It gets used a lot.”
On the trail’s southern end, Union Point completed its first model mile in 2021. According to Lisa Baynes, an avid cyclist who was born and raised there, progress on the trail “really hasn’t slowed down or stopped since!” In November 2023, another section of trail followed spanning 5.8 miles that continued the trail from Union Point, through Woodville, and ended at the Oglethorpe County line. That segment—the trail’s longest to date—completed the route through Greene County and brought the whole trail up to its current 12-mile total.
“We have a lot of walkers on the trail daily who had never seen anything like this,” said Baynes, who noted that Union Point’s model mile was crucial to dispelling fears about the trail. “Locals weren’t going to go seek out rail-trails because they had no idea what they were, so we really used that model mile to introduce to them to what this was going to be. That made a world of difference and really changed people’s perception of what this could do for a community.”
The Firefly’s Bright Future
But due to the small, rural nature of most of the communities along the route, the Firefly Trail might never have been realized without funding from private, state and federal grants, including the Recreational Trails Program and Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Program.
Gilson admits that he wasn’t always a cheerleader for the trail simply due to its expense. “I was on our city council when our former mayor talked about a trail through town on the old railbed, but I wasn’t real gung-ho about it at the time,” he recalled. “It wasn’t because the idea for a trail was bad—we just didn’t have the money for it. And so, when the grants became available, that opened up an opportunity for us to build the trail. Because if we were to try and build it by ourselves, there was no way in the world we could have done it. The grants allowed us to do this, so I’m a great supporter of the trail now.”
With the growing excitement for the project and additional grant funding being pursued, hopes are high that additional sections of the trail will get underway before long. But meeting local match requirements is an ever-present challenge, especially in rural areas where budgets are tight.
“We really want to connect our Greene County section with the next town over in Oglethorpe County that has their own model mile in place already,” said Baynes, who also serves as a Firefly Trail Inc. board member. “There’s about a 4.5-mile gap between us and Maxeys, so our next big push is to secure the funding to get that gap finished.”
With Athens and Winterville connecting on the northern end of the trail, and Union Point and Maxeys connecting on the southern end, what’s left to fill in is the roughly 20 miles between them.
Although this mostly rural stretch may prove the most challenging in terms of fundraising and momentum, Baynes remains hopeful. “In Oglethorpe County, which is in the middle of our corridor, there is one little pocket of opposition to the trail,” she explained. “But at first, there were big pockets of opposition. Over the last couple years, we have seen that pocket diminish quite a bit as they’ve seen the trail come to fruition and seen the usage and seen what it looks like. They just didn’t know before and people are afraid of what they don’t know.”
For now, events like the annual springtime Ticket to Ride are helping to build awareness of the project with the hope of garnering more support for future sections. The non-competitive biking course, which typically draws more than 200 participants, closely parallels the Firefly Trail corridor on low-traffic roads and brings people into the trail towns.
“We’re right here in the Piedmont of Georgia so we have beautiful countryside and rolling terrain—it’s just gorgeous here,” enthused Baynes about the route. “I’ve traveled all over the world, and I always love coming back home.”
When it’s fully completed, the Firefly Trail is expected to bring in an annual economic benefit of $14.1 million for the communities it serves, according to a 2016 study by the Georgia Department of Transportation.
The success of the Firefly Trail has even inspired others to dream bigger with projects like the Georgia Hi-Lo Trail. As laid out in a master plan published this January, the proposed 200-mile pathway will connect with the Firefly Trail at Union Point, then continue southeast to coastal Savannah.
“The trail really shows our community just who we are,” enthused Ferrelle. “When you look out your front door and you look onto that trail now, you’re able to see the diversity that surrounds you, and it’s just a wonderful thing. It’s community-building in all the best ways.”
Firefly Trail 2022: Full Speed Ahead!
In northeast Georgia, 12 miles of the 39-mile Firefly Trail are already complete. When fully realized, the trail is expected to provide an annual economic boost of $14.1 million to communities and become a beacon for residents’ physical and mental health.
Produced by Firefly Trail, Inc. | Used with permission
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