Tanglefoot Trail

The Tanglefoot Trail is a paved rail trail of nearly 44 miles, running north to south from downtown New Albany on the Tallahatchie River to Houston in Chickasaw County. It follows the former Gulf, Mobile and Northern main line through Ingomar, Ecru, Pontotoc, Algoma, and New Houlka, with a restored whistle stop in each of the four smaller towns. The ten foot asphalt path rolls at true rail grade across cotton and soybean fields, pastures, creek bottoms, and stretches of hardwood draped in kudzu, climbing gently over the Pontotoc Ridge near the midpoint. Riding it is easy and steady; the challenge is distance and open sky rather than hills.

• The trail takes its name from the Tanglefoot, a ten wheeler work engine with 36 inch driving wheels that ran at 60 psi during construction of the original line.
• Colonel William C. Falkner, who chartered the railroad in 1871, was the great-grandfather of novelist William Faulkner, born in New Albany on September 25, 1897.
• Ingomar was named for a fictional Indian chief in Colonel Falkner's novel The White Rose of Memphis.
• Ecru took its name from the ecru color of its depot, and the first official train ran through town on July 4, 1888.
• About half a mile west of the trail in Union County, the Ingomar Mound is a 2,000 year old Middle Woodland site that once held 14 mounds; the Smithsonian Institution excavated it in the 1880s.
• Three trail towns carry Chickasaw names: Pontotoc means land of the hanging grapes, Algoma means God abides, and Houlka means a sacred object.
• In 1809 Meriwether Lewis passed through the present day New Albany and Ingomar area on his final journey from St. Louis toward Fort Pickering.
• Houston, the southern trailhead, became home to the first Carnegie library in Mississippi in 1909.
• The Tanglefoot was inducted into the Rail-Trail Hall of Fame in 2019 after capturing more than half of some 26,000 public votes.
• The Mississippi hills along the corridor sit over vast deposits of Late Cretaceous fossils from 65 million years ago.

A ten wheeler named Tanglefoot did the heavy work when Colonel William C. Falkner's crews built this line, and the trail took its name from that engine. The Chickasaw settled here after separating from the Choctaw around 1650, and the Pontotoc to New Albany stretch followed a route they later called the King's Highway. The Treaty of Pontotoc ceded those lands in 1832. Falkner chartered the Ripley Railroad in 1871. His line, renamed the Gulf and Ship Island in 1886, reached New Albany in 1887 and Pontotoc in 1888. The Mobile, Jackson and Kansas City bought it in 1902 and closed the gap south through New Houlka to Houston, so that by 1906 through trains ran the 369 miles between Middleton and Mobile. Reorganization in 1917 made it the Gulf, Mobile and Northern main line. Algoma shipped timber and crossties from the H.W. Owen Tie Company. The GM&N absorbed the Mobile and Ohio to become the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio, which merged into the Illinois Central in 1972. The Illinois Central Gulf sold the route to the Gulf and Mississippi in 1985, and it dwindled to a branch line. Mississippi Tennessee Railnet filed to abandon New Albany to Houston in 2003. Trail planning began in 2004, paving followed a 2010 grant, and the full 43.6 miles opened at once in September 2013. It became a National Recreation Trail in 2015 and entered the Rail-Trail Hall of Fame in 2019.

• New AlbanyMILE 0Directions
• Ingomar Whistle StopMILE 6.4Directions
• Ecru Whistle StopMILE 11Directions
• PontotocMILE 18.5Directions
• Terry Chewe Municipal ParkMILE 19.8Directions
• Algoma Whistle StopMILE 24.3Directions
• New Houlka Whistle StopMILE 33.7Directions
• HoustonMILE 43.6Directions

• Tanglefoot Trail · Who We Are
• Tanglefoot Trail · Rules and Regulations
• Tanglefoot Trail · Interpreting the Trail
• Tanglefoot Trail · Trail Towns
• Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (TrailLink) · Mississippi's Tanglefoot Trail
• HawkinsRails · Tanglefoot Trail
• Wikipedia · Tanglefoot Trail
• National Recreation Trails · The Tanglefoot Trail