New website traces history of Greater Allegheny Passage

By ERIC SEIVERLING

eseiverling@yourmvi.com

The 150-mile Greater Allegheny Passage trail that extends from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C., is full of rich history and heritage.

And now, thanks to West Newton’s Regional Trail Corporation and its GAP History Project, the trail’s history can be found in one spot.

The corporation just announced the GAPhistory.org website, which tells the trail’s 40-year history through numerous photographs and submitted memories and stories.

According to Michele Gornick, project manager for the GAP History Project, the website took more than a year to finish.

“The trail corporation decided the history project was an important undertaking,” she said. “We got some local funding and grassroots funding and wanted to originally do a coffee table book. One of our members said a website would be cheaper and easier.

“We just kept adding these tabs and these stories. We had to write all the content, which grew as we went along. As we wrote, we realized this is more than just one story, this is two or three stories.”

Much of the Great Allegheny Passage is built on the abandoned grades of the Western Maryland Railway and the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad where they join at Connellsville and make up the majority of the trail between Cumberland, Md., and Pittsburgh. 

In the mid-1990s, the Regional Trail Corporation began designing the GAP with the idea of providing walking trails to the public.

The corporation’s first purchase was 43 miles of the Pittsburgh and Lake Eric Railroad.

“They started getting volunteers from different neighborhoods and it was amazing how many volunteers came out,” Gornick said. “They held fundraisers and events, and built a good bit of the local trails.”

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