Friends of the Little Miami State Park is a non-profit group of volunteers dedicated to restoring and maintaining safety on the park's scenic trail. Working under the sanction of the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources, the Friends provide almost all maintenance on the trail. We depend on your support and invite you to join us in serving our community.
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A Trail Is Born
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Photo by Eric Partee, ca. 1990, from I-275 bridge south of Loveland
It was a close-run thing.
- Winston Churchill,
commenting on the Battle of Britain
following the British victory
Well, Sir Winston, so was the Little Miami Scenic Trail. There were some "close calls" involved in converting abandoned railroad tracks into a first-rate multi-use trail; had these close calls gone the wrong way, it would have been much more difficult, if not impossible. . .
Find out how it took a helicopter, a train, a canoe, a high school band, a bi-partisan Congressional effort, and the Ohio Supreme Court to bring us our trail. You'll even meet a cigar-smoking chimpanzee. Click here for the whole story, researched and written by TrailMail contributor Tom Wallace.
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Little Miami State Park Usage Soars!
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 | | Trail-counter volunteer Barb VanOrsdel holds counter equipment she camouflage-painted for better concealment in the woods adjacent to the trail |
by Paul Morgan
Total visits to the Little Miami State Park in 2014 were 760,000! This figure is from our first-ever comprehensive count of trail visits. The last estimate, 200,000, done by OKI in 1998, was based on very limited manual count data and a shorter trail length.
The 2014 estimate was calculated using electronic counters operating 24/7 for at least one month on each of the 22 "counting" sections of our 50-mile trail. The monthly counts were extrapolated to annual visits using data from the National Bike & Pedestrian Documentation project and with support from the Rails to Trails Conservancy.
FLMSP will use the new estimate to encourage grantors and other organizations to invest more money into the maintenance of this trail. We'll help them understand what we trail users already know-that our trail is cherished by the individual users and by the communities the trail passes through, and is a valuable asset to our entire region.
Our counting program will continue for the foreseeable future. If you'd like to help, contact us through our website.
Many thanks to Paul Morgan, FLMSP Board member, for ground-breaking research and development of the trail-counter program.
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| Trailside Historical Marker Approved |
 by Janet Slater
Hamilton Township's first historical marker, explaining the contribution of the Butterworth family to the Little Miami Railroad, the Underground Railroad, and Maineville Academy, will be placed along our trail at Butterworth Station, 2.6 miles north of Loveland. It will mark the location of the stone depot, no longer standing but pictured above.
The boy in the old photo is Thomas Foster, a Butterworth descendent. Although Thomas is deceased, his wife Avery lives in Mason and supplied the photo. The depot is round because it doubled as a water tower for the railroad, using water from nearby springs, as well as a place to await the train.
The engraved sign with a picture and the state-required dedication ceremony require about $3,000 in funding, and the local group who worked for the historical marker needs your help. The caretaker of Butterworth Farm, located just east of the approved marker, is offering a special tour of the stone house where slaves were hidden in the 1830s and 40s to all who contribute $100 or more toward the project.
To contribute, please send a check made out to the Warren County Foundation, designated for Butterworth Station, to: Warren County Foundation, 118 Main St., Lebanon, OH 45036.
A public dedication ceremony for the marker is planned for June 6, 2015.
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| WCWS Blasts Buried Culvert |
 by Paul Morgan
Preserving and protecting our trail and its infrastructure demands many kinds of work - such as assuring that rainwater flows safely through the hundreds of culverts that pass under the trail. Many of these date back to the 1840s when the rail beds were built.
A buried culvert - filled with gravel & dirt with both openings buried in sediment was found by trail volunteers north of Loveland as they investigated water running over the trail. Many volunteer hours were spent digging by hand and backhoe to uncover the openings and restore the outlet ditch, but 30 feet of 24-inch pipe remained clogged. The solution?
 Warren County Water & Sewer Department (WCWS) to the rescue! As a community service, the WCWS dispatched their skilled employees and huge equipment to jet-blast the debris out of the pipe. A job that would have been impossible using standard rental tools was quickly assessed and accomplished by WCWS employees John Kendrick and Adam Osterday, working in a stiff breeze and temperatures in the mid-20s. All it took was three hours and 3000 gallons of water sprayed under high pressure.
Many thanks to John and Adam, WCWS, and the many volunteers who fixed this drainage issue.
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TrailMail, the e-newsletter of Friends of the Little Miami State Park, is published ten times a year. TrailMail welcomes submissions of trail-related photos and articles about people, events, history, and the trail's natural environment. Send submissions to: trailmail@flmsp.org |
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| Tell Us We're Cracking Up | |
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| Public Meeting: Peters Soil Cleanup | |
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| Cooperation Brings Quick Response | |
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