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The Longleaf Trace is a paved rail trail running about 43 miles northwest from downtown Hattiesburg to Prentiss across Forrest, Lamar, and Jefferson Davis counties in the Pine Belt of south Mississippi. It leaves the University of Southern Mississippi gateway, passes the Denbury Beaver Pond, and links the small towns of Sumrall, Bassfield, and Carson before ending at the Carolyn McRaney Gateway in Prentiss. The riding is smooth ten foot wide asphalt on a rail grade that rolls gently through longleaf and loblolly pine woods, wetlands, and open farmland. Stations with restrooms sit every few miles, and a native soil equestrian trail parallels the pavement for 24 miles between Carson and the Ronnie Shows Nature Center.
Longleaf Trace
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Longleaf Trace has about 77 to 141 days of excellent weather for popular activities such as hiking, birding, e-biking, biking, walking, dog walking, and running, with January, November, and December the best months.
Hourly comfort scores for the next 15 days of weather, tuned to your activity and your own thresholds.
Plan your visit to this trail. Get the best windows for a comfortable outing.
Enjoy the Longleaf Trace!
In half of past years, color along the Longleaf Trace peaks November 1 to 14, typically around November 7. The trail has 22% deciduous coverage, with the majority being water oak, sweetgum, blackgum, red maple, and yellow-poplar.
The Pearl and Leaf Rivers Railroad was chartered in November 1897 to haul logs and lumber west from the J. J. Newman Lumber Company sawmill in Hattiesburg. Newman was cutting the virgin longleaf pine of the Pine Belt, and the tracks followed the timber. By 1901 the line reached Sumrall, 19 miles out, where the company ran more mills. In early 1904 the system took a new name, the Mississippi Central Railroad, and pushed on toward Natchez. Its freight grew beyond logs to paper, pulpwood, cotton, and fertilizer. The busiest years ran from the late 1800s through the 1920s, when the big pines were largely gone. The Illinois Central bought the Mississippi Central in 1967. Trains kept running past Sumrall, Bassfield, and Carson until 1983, and the Illinois Central formally abandoned the line in the early 1990s. Local leaders then organized to railbank the corridor. In 1994 the Pearl & Leaf Rivers Rails-to-Trails Recreational District was formed as a joint venture of Forrest, Jefferson Davis, and Lamar counties with the towns of Hattiesburg, Sumrall, Bassfield, and Prentiss. Construction began in 1999, and the Longleaf Trace opened in September 2000. A second phase finished in 2004. The equestrian trail, station buildings, and the Denbury Beaver Pond camp followed. In early 2017 a two mile extension carried the trail from the university gateway into downtown Hattiesburg. Rails-to-Trails Conservancy named it to the Rail-Trail Hall of Fame in 2010, and it is a designated National Recreation Trail.
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