Qualla: American Tobacco Trail

American Tobacco Trail: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zanter at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. The trains stopped running in the 1980s, and for nearly two decades the right-of-way slept in the Carolina pines, rails rusting into ballast, until volunteers with a $2,500 grant decided that an abandoned railroad could become something more useful. Today the American Tobacco Trail runs 22.6 miles from the rural quiet of New Hill, north through Chatham County woods, across the Jordan Lake watershed, and into the heart of downtown Durham, ending across Morehead Avenue from the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. The route once belonged to the Norfolk and Southern Railway, whose predecessor built the line in 1906 to feed leaf to the American Tobacco Company's vast Durham complex. The cargo it carries now is human.

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Image: Zanter at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

American Tobacco Trail: What the Trains Left Behind

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zanter at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Durham and South Carolina Railroad built the spur in 1906, connecting the New Hope Valley to Durham so American Tobacco could move leaf by rail. Norfolk Southern acquired the line in 1957. By the 1970s, trucking had displaced rail for tobacco transport, and the line's working...

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Image: Zanter at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

American Tobacco Trail: A Grant, a Tunnel, and a Bridge

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eagriego, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Triangle Rails-to-Trails Conservancy formed in 1989 with the simple idea that abandoned corridors should not be abandoned. The first money was modest, a $2,500 grant, but Jon Parker and the volunteers who followed him built phase by phase. Leslie Kennedy and the NC Horse Coun...

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Image: Eagriego | CC BY-SA 4.0

American Tobacco Trail: Three Counties, Three Surfaces

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit (User:Wgreaves), CC BY 3.0. The trail changes character as it moves. From New Hill at the southern end, the 6.5-mile Wake County section is gravel, popular with riders on horseback. The Chatham County middle, 4.7 miles managed by the town of Cary, splits into a paved lane and a parallel equestrian path. The...

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Image: (User:Wgreaves) | CC BY 3.0

American Tobacco Trail: Endings and Beginnings

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ildar Sagdejev (Specious), CC BY-SA 4.0. The northern terminus is symbolic. The trail spills out across Morehead Avenue facing the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, the minor-league stadium that anchors the renovated American Tobacco Historic District, where the brick factories that once made Lucky Strike cigarettes have been...

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Image: Ildar Sagdejev (Specious) | CC BY-SA 4.0