History
J.B. Duke founded the American Tobacco Company in 1890, which subsequently acquired the Lucky Strike Company and over 200 other firms. The company built processing plants and warehouses in Durham which were served by several rail lines built in 1905. The rail line to the south which is now the ATT, connected from Durham to Bonsal, NC and onwards to Duncan. It was known as the New Hope Valley Railway and later Durham & South Carolina (it never got as far as SC), and later became part of the Norfolk Southern Railway system. In the 1970s the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the Jordan Lake reservoir in Chatham County necessitating the relocation of a large portion of the tracks. A portion of the original right-of-way is presently a natural surface trail accessible off of Stagecoach Rd. in Durham. A new rail line was built on higher ground a few miles to the east. However, only about 10 years later, the tracks were removed from this new railroad as Norfolk Southern had been bought out, and trains could access the American Tobacco complex via the Southern Railway more economically. 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. Since then, work has progressed at a moderate pace to develop the trail for pedestrian, bicycle, and equestrian use.
In 2012 construction began to upgrade portions of the trail in southern Durham County to Chatham County. The upgrades include a pedestrian bridge over Interstate Highway 40 (I40) as well as paving the natural trail. Additionally, some sections of the improved trail will be widened to accommodate equestrian traffic.
Read more about this topic: American Tobacco Trail
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There are two great unknown forces to-day, electricity and woman, but men can reckon much better on electricity than they can on woman.”
—Josephine K. Henry, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 15, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“History takes time.... History makes memory.”
—Gertrude Stein (18741946)