Picturing the history of GAP bicycle trail in Pennsylvania

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Bicyclists who achieve the Eastern Continental Divide on the Great Allegheny Passage this year will be rewarded with murals of historical scenes from the trail.

The murals, by artist Wayne Fettro, are installed on the rail-trail underpass of MacKenzie Hollow Road in Pennsylvania.

The picture above is just one of dozens of photos that make up a 3D viewing experience at PhotoSynth.net.

The four panels grace both sides of the east and west entrances of the underpass at the 2,392-foot elevation summit for the trail in Somerset County. According to the Daily American Online:

“Travelers headed toward Pittsburgh are now greeted with images of trains, coal and coke workers on one mural and George Washington, who envisioned a connection from the Potomac to the Ohio as a young surveyor, and his travels on the other. Coming from the opposite direction toward Washington, D.C., the scene is the C&O Canal along with the view from the Big Savage Mountain Tunnel on one side and insets of the volunteers who helped make the trail possible on the other.”


Fettro is known for his murals along the Lincoln Highway and other locations in the East. This project was funded by a grant from the Southwestern Pennsylvania Heritage Preservation Commission.

The site of the murals is the highest point on GAP at 2,392 feet of elevation. Water falling on the east side flows to the Chesapeake Bay; on the west it flows into the Gulf of Mexico. Because this is a rail-trail, the grade is very gradual.

The GAP stretches for 150 miles from Cumberland, Maryland, to McKeesport, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburg. It meets with the C&O Canal towpath in Cumberland, creating at 330-some mile no-traffic route from Pittsburgh to Washington DC.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2009/05/03/picturing-the-history-of-gap-bicycle-trail-in-pennsylvania/

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