Tammany Trace

The Tammany Trace is Louisiana's first rail trail, a paved path along the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain from downtown Covington through Abita Springs, Mandeville and Lacombe to the Slidell side of St. Tammany Parish, where it ends at Camp Salmen Nature Park. The ride is rail-grade flat on asphalt the whole way, under loblolly pines, live oaks and magnolias, with a string of bridges built on the old railroad trestles. East of Mandeville the trail passes through Fontainebleau State Park and along Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, then crosses Bayou Lacombe on a tended drawbridge. A separate equestrian path parallels the Trace in places, e-bikes are welcome, and parish rangers patrol the length of it.

• The Tammany Trace is Louisiana's first rails-to-trails conversion.
• In 1896 the East Louisiana Railroad, which built this corridor, worked with Homer Plessy to challenge Louisiana's Separate Car Act, the case that became Plessy v. Ferguson.
• Early brochures sold St. Tammany as The World Famous Ozone Belt; a 1979 newspaper piece pointed out the healthful air was really terpene, the gas pine trees give off.
• The Trace crosses creeks and bayous on 31 bridges built on the original railroad trestles.
• A trailside caboose in Mandeville rests on a small piece of the old track, and converted depots in Mandeville and Covington serve as visitor centers.
• Fontainebleau State Park holds the brick ruins of a sugar mill built in 1829 by Bernard de Marigny, who named his plantation after the forest near Paris.
• Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge protects over 18,000 acres of marsh, cypress-tupelo forest and pine savannah and is home to the red-cockaded woodpecker.
• The Trace was voted into the Rail-Trail Hall of Fame in 2017 with 60 percent of the public vote in a nationwide poll.
• Camp Salmen Nature Park at the east end is a 130-acre former Boy Scout camp on land tied to Fritz Salmen of the Salmen Brick and Lumber Company.
• The trail draws some 300,000 visitors a year.

The East Louisiana Railroad reached Abita Springs in June 1887 and Covington on May 16, 1888. Its trains carried New Orleans families to the springs and pine air of the Ozone Belt, and lumber back out. The health trade was older than the rails: from 1856, New Orleans residents of means had been escaping the city each summer for the Abita waters. On the lakeshore, Bernard de Marigny had run a sugar plantation at Fontainebleau until 1852. A spur to Mandeville opened in 1892. In 1905 the Great Southern Lumber Company bought the East Louisiana and folded it into the New Orleans Great Northern, which built the Shore Line through Slidell, Lacombe, Mandeville and Abita Springs. The line passed to the Gulf, Mobile and Northern in 1929, became Gulf, Mobile and Ohio in 1940, and joined Illinois Central Gulf in 1972. Passenger trains stopped in the 1930s. Freight, mostly brick and lumber, ran until 1988. The ICC approved abandonment in 1992. St. Tammany Parish bought the corridor on December 20, 1992, part purchase and part donation from owner Richard Blossman, with federal money under the new ISTEA law. The first 8.5 miles between Abita Springs and Mandeville opened in September 1994 as Louisiana's first rail trail. Hurricane Katrina damaged the Trace in 2005, and it reopened by early 2007. The parish has since paved 31 miles and rebuilt the trestles as bridges. In 2017 the Trace entered the Rail-Trail Hall of Fame.

• CovingtonMILE 0Directions
• Josephine StreetMILE 2.4Directions
• Abita SpringsMILE 3.5Directions
• Koop Drive TrailheadMILE 7.9Directions
• Sharp RoadMILE 9.4Directions
• MandevilleMILE 12.3Directions
• Northlake Nature CenterMILE 14.1Directions
• Fontainebleau State ParkMILE 15Directions
• LacombeMILE 21.4Directions
• Bonfouca-Carolla TrailheadMILE 27.1Directions
• Camp Salmen Nature ParkMILE 28.7Directions

• Rails-to-Trails Conservancy · Louisiana's Tammany Trace
• Louisiana Northshore · Tammany Trace Bike Trail
• Explore Louisiana · Tammany Trace
• St. Tammany Parish Government · Tammany Trace History
• Biz New Orleans · 20 Years Later, Trace A Part Of Community's Fabric
• Tammany Family · Health Resort Reputation Well Known
• Wikipedia · East Louisiana Railroad
• Rails-to-Trails Conservancy · Hall of Fame Trails
• Louisiana Office of State Parks · Fontainebleau State Park
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service · Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge
• St. Tammany Parish Government · Camp Salmen Nature Park
• Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (TrailLink) · Tammany Trace History
• Tammany Family · Extending the Railroad
• Wikipedia · Tammany Trace
• St. Tammany Parish Government · Tammany Trace hours and closures