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The Delta Heritage Trail is the longest rail-to-trail effort in Arkansas, and one of the longest in the country. Using the former Wynne Subdivision of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, the trail provides a historic and scenic trip through the Delta communities, farms and forests of Southeast Arkansas. The railroad was built as an effort to connect St. Louis and New Orleans using a route on the western side of the Mississippi River. Doing so opened up miles of swampland and river bottoms to loggers, farmers and manufacturing, and created a chain of new communities.
For more than 80 years the railroad served as a conduit for the movement of passengers, timber and lumber, agricultural products, livestock, machinery, chemicals, and the ordinary products needed by the communities along its route. While the railroad is now gone, much of its history can still be found, along with a great deal of regional history.
This book is written for those who want to know more about the route that the Delta Heritage Trail follows. It provides information on the Delta Heritage Trail's history and current status, as well as a mile-by-mile route guide written as if the reader has left Helena Junction, Arkansas, and is riding or hiking the trail southward.
About the author
Barton Jennings has years of experience in the transportation industry. He has also worked as a professor of supply chain management, taught transportation operations, and teaches regulatory workshops for the railroad industry. For fun, he rides trains and researches transportation history.
