Progress made on Foxburg bike route
FOXBURG — For more than two decades, there has been an effort to turn an old railway into a 270-mile bike trail that runs along the Allegheny River from Erie to Pittsburgh.
As sections of the trail have been completed over the years, one area where very little progress has been made has been a 3.2-mile gap between Emlenton and Foxburg.
Long-standing disputes over property ownership, a confusing history of land titles and little interest from within Clarion County created a 20-year standstill for the project.
Thanks to the efforts of the Allegheny River Trail in Clarion County, or ARTinCC group, however, major progress finally has been made in the past year.
After years of previously fruitless struggle, ARTinCC was able to acquire a mile-long stretch along the river spanning from the Foxburg Bridge to Emlenton.
Now, with the property in hand, ARTinCC is able to begin raising funds for the project and will have a groundbreaking ceremony at the Foxburg Bridge on April 24.
Driving force
A driving force behind completing the trail has been Foxburg resident and ARTinCC president Bob Jennings.
Jennings retired as a practicing trial lawyer in Pittsburgh and moved to Foxburg in 2009.
“I got started with rails to trails right after the move,” Jennings said. “There was no group at the time working on the Emlenton to Foxburg area. So in 2012 or 2014, I started pushing for a committee to be made to get the land needed for the trail.”
At the end of 2016, Jennings started ARTinCC with late Clarion County politician Fred McIlhattan and Jim and Ann Marron, co-owners of the Allegheny Grille, situated at the river.
ARTinCC was designated as a nonprofit corporation in early 2018, allowing it to start raising money for engineering analysis and title research.
According to Jennings, the biggest hurdle ARTinCC had to clear was acquiring two pieces of land around the river they would need to develop the trail.
One area housed the former Keystone Supply Co., which closed in 1969, and the other is where the H. E. Shoup Trucking Co. sits.
Jennings said confusion over title history, who owned exactly what land and unknowns about where the old railway actually sat led to a years-long standstill over the two areas.
Land ownership
The confusion about land ownership and titles dates back several centuries, when Samuel Fox, an industrialist from Philadelphia, purchased tracts of land along the Allegheny River from the commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1790.
That is where Jennings had to start in his quest for clarity. Jennings said he attempted to track every transaction of the land and its titles from the 1700s to the present.That included the passing down of the land through generations of Fox's descendants and the Antwerp Pipe Co., which operated near Emlenton until the 1800s. When the pipe company went out of business in the 1870s, land ownership shifted to all sorts of different people, and the same thing happened again when Fox's last descendants moved away from the area in the 1960s.After researching the title history, Jennings thought that ARTinCC had legitimate claims to the parts of two pieces of land where the river is. Even this was up for debate, however, as the river has actually moved since those titles were first drawn up.H. E. Shoup Trucking, for instance, was established in 1914. Since then, a bend formed as the river froze and melted each year, moving its boundaries.Acquiring landThe area where the old supply company sat is 1.94 acres right at the Foxburg Bridge, according to Jennings. Despite only needing a small part of it for the bike trail, ARTinCC wanted to acquire the entire plot to eventually develop parking for the trail or a community park.ARTinCC purchased the land from the Hunt brothers for $67,500, with two years to raise the money.Similarly, Jennings said they only wanted to use a small part of the trucking company's plot. However, Carl Wolfe, a partner at H. E. Shoup Trucking, said there were concerns about safety.“With the trails that have to go in and out, we can't have people on bikes riding through the middle of the property,” Wolfe said. “We negotiated for three years, trying to figure out something that would work for the town and the people, but wouldn't be a hindrance on us as a business.”Rather than getting wrapped up in a legal fight over who owns what land, the two sides reached an agreement where ARTinCC is permitted to develop the bike trail on the company's land as long as it builds a fence that will keep the bike riders from the trucks.“I want to see a bike trail here,” Wolfe said. “We wanted to do what was best for everyone and that everyone could live with.”Replace buildingsARTinCC also would replace any of the trucking company's buildings, if there were any that need to be removed in order to build the trail, something Wolfe said he does not expect will be required.Wolfe said even though the new trail might not create profits for the town or local businesses, he is still happy they were able to reach an agreement and the trail will be built.“It doesn't generate any money,” Wolfe said. “What it does is it helps the town, and we're part of this town. I grew up in this town. I'm happy we got this done and didn't drag it out.”Jennings, too, was happy to reach an agreement both sides found favorable.“Without a dime passing hands, he got to protect his roadway, and we got everything we need for the bike trail,” Jennings said.Building trailWhile securing the land was a challenge, Jennings said the hard part of building the trail is yet to come.“It's going to take a tremendous amount of planning,” Jennings said. “We've got the major issue of crossing Route 58.”Jennings said ARTinCC's main effort right now will be recruiting volunteers, raising funds, meeting with legislators and applying for grants.ARTinCC is working with the Senate Engineering company from Kittanning, who Jennings said have been building bike trails for more than 10 years.Jennings estimated it will cost more than $600,000 to develop the mile of the trail. ARTinCC is planning to apply for a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, but ARTinCC members need to raise half of it themselves to match what the DCNR will give them.“We've just got a lot to do,” Jennings said.Those interested in more information about ARTinCC's efforts or wanting to contribute a donation can visit its website, artincc.org.
