The Heartland Trail is a developing rail-trail project that will one day connect the northeastern Ohio communities of Orrville and Clinton. A mile of the pathway is already on the ground in Orrville, beginning at the downtown trailhead, just 3 blocks from the Orrville Historical Museum on Depot Street. The trail then threads northward through the downtown business district and the Orrville Dog Park before terminating near Hostetler Road.
The next phase of the trail opened in September 2019 and spans 2.4 miles between Forrer Road in Orrville and the Village of Marshallville.
Once the trail reaches Clinton, it will connect to the Ohio & Erie Towpath Trail, which spans more than 80 miles from Cleveland to Bolivar.
The Orrville Historical Museum features restrooms, benches and a drinking fountain. Its parking lot is at the corner of West Market Street and Depot Street.
You can also park at the Orrville Dog Park on Ella Street. A paved path leads to the trail.
In Marshallville
I waited for the rain to pass and still had to deal with sprinkles to check this short little trail off my list of TrailLink.com’s Ohio listed trails. The Heartland trail is under development and will achieve two major goals. First, it will fill in an on-road section of the Ohio to Erie Trail route and move it on to trail from Fredericksburg to Clinton and connect the Holmes County Trail with the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail. Secondly, this trail when completed will also be a piece of the RTC’s nationwide rail trail route, The Great American Rail Trail, as it makes its way through Ohio.
The trail is so short right now it probably is unfair to evaluate it. Presently, it travels through Orrville, Ohio’s Dog Park and parallels Main Street as a widened sidewalk up to a parking lot just south of Hostetler Road. I believe that the current map on TrailLink.com is incorrect as it shows the southern part of the trail in Orrville as an on-road route down N. Ella Street to W. Market Street. However, Sterling Avenue coming out of the Dog Park is signed as a bike route and is marked with sharrows. Once you reach W. Market Street, if you turn left and ride one block down to Depot Street you will arrive at Orville’s Union Station and a new trailhead for the Heartland Trail. In addition, the present map here at TrailLink.com doesn’t show what appears to be a fairly new trailhead with bathroom facilities.
There's great potential in this trail already, I can't wait until it begins connecting to nearby towns. Only two stars for now because of its current length.
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