OPENING — Hellbender Preserve and Trail will open to the public Saturday beginning at 10 a.m. Officials from the Great American Rail Trail will be on hand for a ribbon cutting at 10:30 a.m., and food trucks and vendors will be there to offer sandwiches and drinks. Hellbender Trail is the first leg of the Great American Rail Trail completed in Jefferson County. -- Linda Harris

STEUBENVILLE — It’s not just that it’s the first piece of multi-use trail in Jefferson County, or that it’s the first piece of the Great American Rail Trail built here.

Saturday’s grand opening of Hellbender Preserve and Recreational Trail will also offer area residents their first look at long forgotten historical landmarks as well as flora and fauna native to Jefferson County, Soil and Water Conservation District Program Director Aaron Dodds said.

Hellbender Preserve, located at 800 county Road 36, Bloomingdale, boasts the sandstone Lincoln Bridge, which Abraham Lincoln ordered built early in his presidency to replace the wooden span where he nearly fell to his death on the way to his inauguration, as well as train tunnels dating to the 1850s adorned with names and initials of the men who built them carved into the rock.

There’s also a half-mile offshoot from the main trail, Fardowners’ Retreat, that follows the escape route taken by Irish tunnel workers during the “Irish Row” in the 1850s. The Fardowners came to blows with the Corkians, also Irish, working on different parts of the train tunnels “met in the middle and were six-inches off center. The Fardowners and Corkians blamed each other for the construction glitch, and the subsequent battle “bled into Steubenville” with the two sides “firing cannon down Market Steet at each other.”

It’s all part of the Great American Rail Trail, a 3,700-mile biking and walking trail stretching from Washington, D.C. to the state of Washington.

Eric Oberg, Senior Director of Programs, Rails to Trails Conservancy, said the mile-long Hellbender Trail, the first piece of the trail through Jefferson County to be completed, is an amazing confluence of past and present.

“I can tell you our national staff, we’ve been talking about this place for a long time because working with Soil and Water, we’ve known for a long time that this was very likely going to be the first piece of trail opened in Jefferson County,” Oberg said. “There’s been an anticipation that when (it was ready) this is going to be really cool–I’ve told the story internally at the Rails to Trails Conservancy, and showed them some pictures of the bridge, and (told them), ‘You guys have no idea, this is so cool,’ and everyone (gushed) over the stories and the pictures, so it’s already got (the attention) of people who go out and see and work on trails all over the country. It really does captivate people.”

Dodds said they’re banking on it.

“Jefferson Soil and Water hopes that the Hellbender Preserve is a harbinger of a new era for Jefferson County,” he said. “The property repurposes the industrial past while preserving and restoring key features that are largely unique to the county. When we worked with famed landscape ethicist, Rick Darke, (on the plants), he spoke often of taking a ‘palimpsest’ approach where, through selective editing, we take features from the past and implement in the new landscape.”

Hellbender Preserve, he said, is just the first piece of a recreational master plan with “a wide range of natural beauty and rich history highlighting the grandeur of Jefferson County.”

Down the road, he said they’re planning a walking trail through Quaker Ridge Preserve, while the Piney Fort Trail and Preserve, like Hellbender, will have trails for both walking and biking.

“Hellbender Preserve is a special place because it has been a time capsule sitting in the middle of the woods for generations,” Dodds said. “Flora and fauna have escaped negative setbacks from human impacts, so visitors can see flowers and animals that have become uncommon in the area, although people should not expect to see Hellbenders who reside under large rocks all day.”

Oberg said getting that first piece of the trail in place is crucial, to the Great American Rail Trail as well as Jefferson County.

“That first mile of trail is so important, it just gives some positive momentum, and you can build off it,” he said. “It’s a little bit like, ‘Hey, there’s a toehold here, now how do we get it a little further, how do we get a little closer (to plugging the gaps) on each end? It just gives you something concrete for local people to go and see and touch and, hopefully, like and want more of.”

Trails also have an economic and societal impact on their communities, he said.

“That’s a huge part of this,” he said. “The piece of the great American rail trail that I think is the most exciting thing for communities is the fact that it can be a conduit for economic development,” he said. “I do most of my work in the Midwest, because I live here and, and I can tell you looking at the places along the Great Allegheny Passage in western Pennsylvania…so many of those communities look and feel like so many of the communities in the Ohio River valley. There are a lot of coal communities, a lot of mining communities that…have had a pretty hard go in the last 50 years.

“But having that trail is not the magic bullet–you don’t just build a trail, and all your community woes are going to be fixed, that’s something I’d never come in and say,” Oberg continued. “But it really can become a central focus and theme in the community–we’ve seen it in so many places: It’s not a factory, it’s not going to bring in 5,000 jobs, but it can sustain some small businesses, maybe some little bed and breakfasts, certainly restaurants, and maybe a bike shop in a community pops up all of a sudden and you go, ‘Wow, I didn’t even realize that we didn’t have one or maybe that it’s a viable business. We see it all the time.”

Even more important, he said, is how it changes the community mindset.

“It gives rural communities and the people that live there a reason to either come home or stay home,” he said. “If you talk to people, if you talk to some of the older generation retirees or people that have been able to stay in them, it’s one of the first things anyone wants to talk about–how their kids and grandkids moved away, how everyone moves away after they graduate. Then, after trails open, what you start seeing in some of those communities is that all of a sudden, it’s like, ‘My son moved back to open up a new restaurant because he saw that there was a viable business opportunity. Or my kid graduated high school, and he’s been working at the local bike shop, and he’s actually moving up and becoming part owner, and he’s not going to leave.’ Those stories, to me, are what it’s really all about — keeping a community intact and keeping people there or giving people a reason to be able to move back if they’ve always wanted to but never thought they could. That kind of stuff is life-changing for people and the community. ”

Oberg said the next step is connecting West Virginia’s Panhandle Trail to Steubenville–that will require the State of West Virginia following through on its commitment to replace the Market Street bridge, closed for safety reasons–and developing a trail from Steubenville to Hellbender Preserve.

City officials are already talking about what can be done to facilitate planning for a recreational trail from wherever the replacement bridge lands on the Ohio side. A downtown safety study, which includes removing traffic signals at 12 intersections and addressing interest in a bike trail, is in its final stages.

Dodds pointed out they couldn’t have gotten Hellbender Trail built and the Preserve ready to show off to county residents without the help and commitment of the Jefferson County Commissioners as well as private donors.

Commissioners committed several hundred thousand dollars in American Rescue Plan dollars to the project after the State of Ohio chose not to fund Soil and Water’s recreation and preservation-themed plan when it awarded hundreds of millions of dollars to communities in other Ohio counties through its much ballyhooed Appalachian Grant program: Other than a $5 million award for downtown Adena streetscaping, Jefferson County was left out in the cold.

“The Jefferson County Commissioners truly stepped up and helped deliver these quality-of-life improvements that will benefit the people and help spur economic growth within the county,” Dodds said. “On Saturday, people are encouraged to come out to the Hellbender Preserve property from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. In collaboration with the Rails to Trails Conservancy, we’ll be holding a ribbon cutting at 10:30 a.m. to open the preserve as part of the National Celebrate Trails Day.:

Dodds said food vendors will be on hand, offering a selection of sandwiches and drinks, and visitors can enjoy the property at their leisure. Ample parking is available.

“People are encouraged to bring their families, cameras and a flashlight if they choose,” he said, adding the first 100 visitors will receive a special souvenir package.