Underground Railroad bike route in the planning stage

Underground Railroad bike route in the planning stage

Post staff report



Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky are part of a 2,000-mile Underground Railroad
Bicycle Route being planned by a cycling group.

Specific roads and bike trails the route will follow are still being researched
and organizers say tours on the route probably won't be available until 2007.

The route from Mobile, Ala., to Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada, where many escaped
slaves settled, is being planned by the Adventure Cycling Association, a
44,000-member group headquartered in Missoula, Mont.

The cycling group is partnering with the Center for Minority Health in
Pittsburgh on the project and informally collaborating with the National
Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati.

Ginny Sullivan of the Adventure Cycling Association said she will be coming to
Cincinnati in mid-October to tour the area and meet with people interested in
the bike route, including staff members of the Freedom Center.

"The Freedom Center will be featured as one of the sites to see along the bike
route," she said.

Paul Bernish of the Freedom Center said some staff members of the center have
already had preliminary discussions with officials of the cycling association.

"We would look for any opportunity to work with them," said Bernish. "We think
the Underground Railroad Bicycle Route is well worth doing.

"Anything that draws attention to the underground railroad, its sites and that
portion of our history is terrific."

The Underground Railroad was a series of routes and safe houses that slaves used
in the 1800s to escape from the southern United States, where slavery was legal,
to the northern United States and Canada, where slavery was illegal.

The Ohio River was the demarcation line between slave states and free states.

The cycling association is mapping a route based on the song "Follow the
Drinking Gourd," a coded saga about an escape route from Alabama and Mississippi
to the Ohio River.

The drinking gourd was another name for the Big Dipper arrangement of stars that
escaping slaves used as a guide.

Preliminary plans for the bicycle route include Louisville and Maysville, Ky.,
as well as Cincinnati and Ripley, in Brown County, Ohio, said Sullivan.

"We've developed a corridor and we're now looking for specific roads," she said.
"Most of our routes will be on two-lane highways. We look for roads that have
low traffic density and good shoulder width, although we can't always find
both."

The route is expected to go northeast from Cincinnati along the Little Miami
Scenic Trail, a popular paved road for bicycles and pedestrians that is off
limits to cars and trucks.

http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs....WS01/508230344

"Garrison Hilliard" wrote in message
...
Underground Railroad bike route in the planning stage

Post staff report

http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs....WS01/508230344
Portion snip.
Since this proposal doesn't cover the east I have research and posted some
northeast Underground Railroad links on my web site;
http://www.billcotton.com/undergroun...ast_bicycl.htm

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www.billcotton.com