The Tennessee Central Trail Authority unveiled its new rail trail tourism map Friday at the Cookeville Depot’s Trailhead.
Tennessee Central Trail Authority Chair Brandon Stephenson said the new map has a list of businesses and activities along the rail trail. Stephenson said the new map will do a better job of what there is to do while traveling the trail.
“What kind of shopping, what kind of retail, what kind of food opportunities, small business to go see while they are utilizing the Tennessee Central Trail,” Stephenson said. “So we got 4.3 miles of beautiful trail here in downtown Cookeville into Algood and we just want to promote the utilization of that and let people know what’s available for a day on the trail.”
Stephenson said a survey completed in 2024 showed that an estimated 30,000 people travel the rail trail each month. Stephenson said the rail trail has been an economic driver and that the new map will hopefully bring more tourism dollars to the region.
“You know tourism dollars they mean a lot for our community,” Stephenson said. “You know they fund a lot of public works projects. They fund awareness for the area that all brings an increase in quality of life and an increase in your hard-earned property value.
Stephenson said the new map is hopefully one of many steps in the direction of expanding that rail trail.
“That’s absolutely the goal you know we envisioned and the trail was started in 2006 really with the vision to connecting the Cumberland to be an ultimately 43-mile connector from Monterey all the way down to the Caney Fork River,” Stephenson said. “We were able to open the segment of trail that exists today in 2016 and we still want to push and advocate for a goal you know from Monterey to the Cumberland and that’s really what we are trying to do is to get people out here to know what a great benefit it is for our community and push for more.”
Stephenson said the authority had worked on creating a new map since last October.
