On the Tracks

The commute down U.S. 64 from Hendersonville to Brevard, North Carolina, is just that—a commute. Drivers top out at 55 miles per hour, giving little thought to the family-owned shops and eateries that flank the double-yellow thoroughfare. 

But a group of community organizers is bent on changing that by blazing a slower, more deliberate path between the two mountain cities. 

That group, Friends of Ecusta Trail, is an all-volunteer organization whose mission is to convert 19 miles of defunct railroad into a biking and walking corridor. The nonprofit’s namesake, the Ecusta Trail, is proposed to start on South Main Street in downtown Hendersonville and wind through the communities of Laurel Park, Horse Shoe, and Etowah before ending in Brevard behind the Oskar Blues Brewery located at 342 Mountain Industrial Drive.

Named after the Ecusta Mill in Pisgah Forest, a now-defunct producer of cigarette and bible paper, the trail will follow a rail line constructed by the Brevard Railway, Telegraph, and Telephone Company in 1894. 

However, overhauling a 127-year-old rail line is easier said than done. For ten years after the organization’s founding in 2009, volunteers focused almost entirely on outreach, visiting other rail-trails across the southeast in hopes of gaining insight into what it might take to build one back home.

“Trails grow community,” says Brian Burns, a founding member of Friends of Ecusta Trail. “I never understood that until I visited with homeowners along the Swamp Rabbit Trail in South Carolina. The path is an extension of their backyards. It’s where they recreate; it’s where they talk to their neighbors after work.” 

Beyond building community, a rail-trail project could bolster tourism in Transylvania, Henderson, and surrounding counties. A 2012 economic impact report estimates the Ecusta Trail will attract 1,000 users per mile per year, generating $1.2 million in annual tourism spending. 

“Studies show that anytime you can get a contiguous bicycling or walking trail that is at least nine miles in length, you develop a tourism draw,” Burns says. “From a tourism perspective, it makes sense to get those miles in as fast as we can.” 

In 2019, Friends of Ecusta partnered with the regional land conservancy, Conserving Carolina, to secure a $6.4 million grant from the North Carolina Department of Transportation to be used toward the purchase of the rail line. The Henderson County Planning Department was instrumental during this process as well.  

Construction on the first phase of the project—a six-mile segment stretching from the Hendersonville terminus to Horse Shoe—will commence in January 2022. It is expected to be completed by 2025. Despite this long-winded timeline, entrepreneurs are already eyeing the corridor, looking to establish cafes and bike rental shops.

“There is so much potential,” Burns says. “I bet I get calls three times a week from potential businesses that are considering opening something close to the trail.” 

Existing small businesses are gearing up, as well, redesigning outdoor spaces and rolling out new items that they hope will encourage passersby to slow down and stay for a while.

Parkside Java 

When David Schnitzer, owner of Appalachian Coffee Company, says his business has a following, he means it in the most literal sense. 

Over the past nine years, customers have followed the coffee shop from modest beginnings on North Church Street in downtown Hendersonville to a nearby walk-up on Asheville Highway to a satellite location on the Brevard College campus to its current spot on Fifth Avenue West in Laurel Park. Customers have also supported beverage changes, additions of savory food items, and the introduction of wine and beer. 

“If you’re ever going to be in the business world, you have to be open to new ideas,” Schnitzer says. “You can’t get stuck.” 

This mentality is one reason why Schnitzer is such an outspoken advocate for the Ecusta Trail. Once complete, the corridor will run alongside the cafe’s small, triangular parcel, bringing more customers through its doors.  

“There will be new populations coming in, like younger kids, for example,” Schnitzer says. “Our business will evolve because of this. It’s going to be huge for us.”

There are already plans to add an ice cream shop and expand outdoor seating. Since Schnitzer is a real estate agent, he is also toying with the idea of establishing a vacation rental company in a small office space connected to the shop.

“The greenway will expose customers to new ways of experiencing Hendersonville and the surrounding towns,” he says. 

After grabbing an iced chai, for instance, coffee shop patrons can head up the trail to Horse Shoe. There, in that tiny community of 2,000-some people, they can get a taste of river life. 

Big Bend Paddles

Nestled in a bend of the French Broad River, Horse Shoe is a place where life slows down. It’s a place where, with guidance from locals, you can feel as if you are hundreds of miles away from anywhere. 

“Once you paddle out from our boat ramp, it only takes a couple of minutes to feel like you’re all by yourself,” says Matt Evans, co-owner of Lazy Otter Outfitters in Horse Shoe. “We call this section of the river the ‘Undiscovered French Broad.’” 

Operating out of an unassuming, 900-square-foot building on Banner Farm Road, Lazy Otter is likely the smallest paddle outfitter on the river. Evans, a former newspaper reporter, runs the company with his wife, Leslie, and one or two seasonal employees.

They primarily offer guided kayaking trips of varying lengths, the most popular being a seven-mile paddle to Westfeldt Park in Mills River. Not only does the trip pass by Kings Bridge, a historic site where a steamboat called the Mountain Lily ran aground in the 1800s, but it also terminates just a few miles shy of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. 

“That one’s a favorite,” Evans says. “We organize the trip so that people end at the park with their car waiting for them. They can go grab some beers afterward.” 

Evans imagines that, much like Sierra Nevada, the Ecusta Trail will bolster regional tourism. In anticipation, he and Leslie are adding picnic tables to their four-acre, riverside parcel. They might also start inviting food trucks once the season picks up.  

“It’ll only be positive,” Evans says of the trail. “It’s the kind of traffic we want in our two-stoplight town. We want to pull people off the highway and into nature.”

Farm Life Rules 

It’s hard to say which came first: the community of Horse Shoe or the Pope family. For Henderson County locals, the two are one and the same. 

For decades, Patricia Pope and her late husband, Bert, raised and sold grass-fed beefalo—a bison and American cattle hybrid animal—on acreage in the center of Horse Shoe. Even before then, Bert’s family raised goats on Davenport Mountain. But today, farm life is changing. 

Steelie Pope, Patricia’s granddaughter, is working to diversify the farm’s offerings. Last fall, she and her husband, Sam Runion, grew 2,000 pumpkins with the guidance of Patricia, whom they lovingly call “Packa.” They also built a mobile storefront on a flatbed trailer for their pumpkin business, inviting community members to purchase gourds from the farm—a business they now call Packa’s Place. 

“People blow through Horse Shoe on their way from Hendersonville to Brevard,” Runion said. “It was a bit of a challenge to get people to slow down.” 

This year, the couple is cultivating an agritourism model. They are adding a lavender patch to the property, building public bathrooms, and establishing an official place for customers to buy beefalo, craft beverages, and other seasonal farm items. 

“This is what interests Steelie and me: getting people to the farm and letting them experience it for a day,” Runion said. “They can walk through the garden, take pictures with the beefalo, and pick pumpkins.”

Runion thinks the Ecusta Trail, which will run parallel to the family’s pasture, will only enhance their new venture, especially when the pandemic wanes and they can host more community events. However, not everyone sees the trail as a positive addition to the bijou village of Horse Shoe. 

“Personally, I think it’s great,” Runion says. “However, I do know some private residences aren’t too happy about it.”

Watering Hole Brews 

Rails-to-trails projects often see an outpouring of support tempered by equal parts opposition. Carrieann Schneider knows this to be true from living in Winter Garden, Florida, near the 22-mile West Orange Trail. 

“My husband and I lived there for 15 years and watched firsthand how the community changed because of the trail,” Schneider said. “At first, people were so opposed to it that they put up fences. But by the time we moved, our neighbors had taken those fences down. Kids sold lemonade along the side of the trail. The town became vibrant.”

When Carrieann and her husband, Jon, relocated to Western North Carolina in 2014, they selected their ten-acre property in Etowah because the proposed Ecusta Trail ran right through it. They realized how significant a rail-trail could be for their then-nascent business, Sideways Farm and Brewery. 

“We wanted land in an agricultural setting,” Schneider said. “When you go to a winery, the wine has a connection to the land. But when you go to a brewery, it’s often in an industrial setting despite being an agricultural product.”

Positioned between Hendersonville and Brevard off U.S. 64, Sideways provides guests with an opportunity to sip craft beverages—beer, of course, but also wine, kombucha, and soda from Waynesville Soda Jerks—on a stunning, small-scale farm where goats bleat and bees buzz just yards away from the taps.  

Needless to say, Sideways isn’t your typical watering hole. Sure, customers chew the fat and munch on empanadas or grilled cheeses or whatever that week’s food truck is dishing up. But they also tune into the bucolic backdrop. Young couples walk through the flower patch, a pint of Queen’s Farmhouse Ale in one hand and daffodils in the other. Out-of-state travelers sit by the fire, admiring the dizzying glow of summer fireflies. People stay even after their glasses are empty. 

“We wanted a place for the community to gather,” Schneider says. “The trail is only going to further that.”

Treehouse Digs 

Whereas the Schneiders wanted to create a space for plugging in, five friends in Brevard wanted to create a space for just the opposite. 

Positioned on 132 contiguous acres off U.S. 276, Pilot Cove offers travelers a secluded place to recharge before diving headfirst into all that Pisgah National Forest has to offer. The property is outfitted with 15 treehouse-style cabins, each with private decks that look out into the surrounding hardwood forest. 

“We designed our building portfolio so that we only touch about 17 percent of the acreage,” says co-owner Collin O’Berry. “Our goal is to maintain that forested mountain appearance as much as we possibly can.” 

That is not to say Pilot Cove is lacking in amenities. In addition to a luxurious space to catch some zzzs, guests are provided with access to the Pilot Cove Trail System, a network of dirt, gravel, and flow track that can be easily connected to Pisgah’s infamously gnarly mountain biking trails. Pilot Cove is also a short peddle to the Brevard Bike Path and, soon enough, the Ecusta Trail. 

Beyond providing his guests with a place to recreate, O’Berry imagines the Ecusta Trail will do what the Atlanta BeltLine did for A-Town. 

“It’s amazing what hubs have popped up around the BeltLine,” says O’Berry, a Georgia transplant. “Though our area is more suburban than Atlanta, a decommissioned rail line trail will still be transformative, spurring small business development.”

Expecting a jump in customers, O’Berry and his business partners are in the process of site grading for five more cabins. They are hoping to add 30 more and a campground in the future.  

“We want to provide people with a base camp,” O’Berry said. “Our goal is just to get more people outside. We share that goal with Friends of Ecusta Trail.”

To learn more about the Ecusta Trail, visit ecustatrail.org.