To find this trail, start at the U.S. Capital and drive for about 45 minutes (or take the Metro Silver Line to Spring Hill station, then bike or rideshare). You will still be in the midst of a major metropolitan area. But you will be at a location with a history that extends back over 700 million years.

The Great Falls on the Potomac River are found where the hard, Precambrian rock of the Piedmont Plateau (about 730 million years old) meets softer and much younger rock of the Coastal Plain. The river cut these falls during the last Ice Age about 2 million years ago, when sea level fell nearly 500 feet as water from the oceans was frozen into giant ice sheets. These falls drop about 75 feet in roughly 2/3 of a mile. While not as massive as falls in other parts of the world, they are impressive for the ever-changing cascades and seasonal variety. It’s hard to believe that a place this wild is surrounded by the urban fabric of the region.

For Indigenous peoples, this was a place for ceremonies to honor the spirit of the “Roaring Waters.” Trade and transport have long been part of the story as well, both for Indigenous peoples and the Europeans who began arriving in the early 1600’s.

The site also shows the connection of political leadership and commerce in the expansion of the early United States. Boats could not traverse these falls. Beginning as a young surveyor, a future U.S. leader imagined a canal to allow travel around them. He became the President of the canal company in 1784 and led the construction of canals, locks and dams that allowed river boats to transport goods from the Appalachian valleys of Virginia to the cities and towns of Maryland and the coast. While canals were later overtaken by railroads as the preferred method for shipments, they played an important initial role in connecting commerce from the frontier to the eastern Seaboard and from there to international markets.

The Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway (MKT) was incorporated in May 1870 in Junction City, Kansas. Among its lines was one that reached a major Texas city in 1886. This line connected the city to a transportation and trading network stretching to Houston, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Kansas City and St. Louis. It became known by a nickname that would later be associated with the trail.

After highways replaced rail as the dominant cargo carrier, many of these lines were abandoned. The abandoned right-of-way in Missouri became one of the first “rails-to-trails” conversions in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.

When Strategic Community Solutions LLC became involved in planning in the area, there was discussion about using the abandoned tracks for a similar trail. Having experienced the success of the rails-to-trails conversion in Missouri, we championed the idea.

But there were different dynamics at work. In the community, most of the people along the route strongly opposed the idea. Residents of apartments that backed up to the right-of-way worried that a trail would lead to break-ins and crime. Commercial and residential property owners believed the trail would reduce their property values. Within the City’s organization, there were concerns too. Would this be a route for people to travel (on foot or by bike) to work? If so, it should be managed by the Transportation Department. Or was it just for families to enjoy on the weekends? In that case, the Parks Department should be in control.

Luckily, community leaders and action found a way through the concern and confusion. Thanks in large part to a visionary architect, Philip Henderson FAIA, the Friends of the trail was created in 1997. With this non-profit leading private fund-raising and operations, the initial stretch of the trail was opened in 2000. The trail is operated as a City park and the Friends continue to provide operational and fund-raising support.

Today, the worries about declining real estate values and crime are laughable. Marketing for residential units trumpets their proximity to the trail and adjacent properties often have pedestrian gates for quick access. The route includes some of the most intensive and valuable mixed use developments in the city. It anchors more recent visions for much larger trail networks throughout the city and the region.

Frederick Law Olmsted is widely recognized as the first landscape architect to design parks that embrace nature. Today this beloved park and trail system he created is known as the Emerald Necklace. It includes nine parks and over 1,100 acres of land – over half of city’s park acreage.

The trail we’re exploring is located in an area that was salt marsh before colonists began filling in portions of the bay for development. When Olmsted became involved, in the late 1870’s, the area included tidal marshes, streams and drainage discharge basins (which in those days also meant sewage discharge). Olmsted and his firm developed a design that placed a priority on solving the sanitation, drainage and flood control issues, restored the salt marsh and then also included parkland and paths for people, horses and vehicles. It was established as a park in 1879.

Many things have changed these original designs over time, including damming of the Charles River in 1910. Today the park includes waterways, trails and a variety of recreational amenities. It winds through an area with many major cultural institutions, notable universities and a famous baseball stadium. More than one million people visit this and the other Emerald Necklace parks each year.

The area of this trail, lake, and environmental learning area has been greatly modified by human action. It is located where the Blackland Prairie and the Eastern Cross Timbers (two major ecological regions) intersect.

When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers created the lake in 1955, they built a large dam across the Elm Fork of the Trinity River. An area of about 2,600 acres below the dam was designated for flood control, acquired and left open. As natural systems reclaimed the area, people recognized its value for both recreation and research. In the 1990’s a partnership established this environmental learning area as a site for education and research.

With the adoption of the City’s 2025 Vision Plan in 2014, the environmental learning area became the central part of that plan’s “Green Centerpiece” and a major priority for the City. The partnership was updated and a new Master Strategy was adopted by the partners (the City, the university, and the independent school district with approval from and in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers).

Today, the environmental learning area is managed as part of the City’s parks system and is supported by a non-profit Friends organization. There are over eight miles of trails at the site, including paddling trails. The local independent school district operates its Outdoor Learning Area on 84 adjacent acres. The university has expanded and enhanced its activities through a new Advanced Environmental Research Institute.

The Trinity River is the longest river with a basin completely within the state of Texas. It has been a route for trading, fishing and traveling since the days of the Caddo and other Indigenous nations. In the 1700’s and 1800’s, the nomadic Penatuhkah Comanche lived in the northern and central areas of current-day Texas. Their marker trees, showing travel routes, have been identified along its course. The Trinity basin was farmed extensively in the early 20th century, with cotton a major agricultural product.

In response to flooding, levees were constructed beginning in the 1930’s. These levees protected the industrial, downtown and neighborhood areas of a major Texas city. The largely minority neighborhoods in the southern part of the city were not protected. Where the levees ended, the river flooded neighborhoods and former cotton fields. Over time, natural vegetation took hold in those fields. By the 1990’s an extensive forest had grown in the floodplain downstream from the levees.

Environmentalists recognized its value and began advocating for its preservation. They were opposed by others in the community who were more concerned about flood control, transportation and industrial growth.

When the city adopted its comprehensive plan in 1994, the Trinity River Corridor was identified as one of the six major Strategic Initiatives. The plan envisioned a future where the interests of multiple competing perspectives could be balanced. Following the plan’s adoption, a large citizens’ committee was formed to recommend action for the Trinity. Among those recommendations was the designation of this area as the “Great Trinity Forest.” After much debate, this name was adopted and the forest became one of the central concerns of the environmental aspects of planning for the Trinity River Corridor Project.

The term recognizes that this is a 6,000 acre area of urban hardwood forest, the largest in the country. Trails now extend through this forested area and to other destinations along the Trinity River, totaling over 15 miles.

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