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Print Friendly MapThe Tecumseh Trail Multi-use Pathway offers a pleasant route, partially on the former Pennsylvania Railroad's Columbus-to-Saint Louis freight mainline. The rail route was also once used for Lincoln's funeral train in 1865.
The trail provides a mixed biking experience with about half the trail dedicated trail and the other half share-the-road. The initial paved portion of the trail runs from downtown Gettysburg east nearly 2 miles to North Harrison-Bradford Road, which you can continue east on as an on-road bike route to Bradford and the border between Darke and Miami counties.
As of 2019, from downtown Gettysburg, you can now follow the trail all the way into Greenville, connecting with the Greenville Creek segment at the Bish Discovery Center on Ohio Street (bike station and water available). With that, Darke County Parks now provides a trail from Bradford, Miami County to Greenville in Darke County, nearly 15 miles. One day, the trail is hoped to continue west to Greenville and Union City. From Union City, the trail could cross the border to connect with Indiana's 62-mile Cardinal Greenway.
A dedicated dirt trail parking lot is located on the west side of North Bridge Street, at the north end of Gettysburg, easily accessed heading north from US 36.
Here are additional parking areas:
Really a great local area hike, easy not really any hills.
Broke the hike into 2 early morning hikes (6am) over the 4th July weekend.
First half from Bradford (Church parking lot) to Trail Head on Hartzell road(3-4 nice parking spots) -My Apple watch showed 7.70Miles.(2hr 20mins)
Next day we finished up from Hartzell Rd to the end at Garst. (6.16 miles, 2hr hike)
Really a great nice hike that we plan on doing frequently now. Trail is pretty well marked, could use a sign maybe at Ohio St & Martin and we could not find one to start the hike in Bradford, but really no big deal, easy to figure out if you take second.(or we may have just missed it-not sure)
If you have a couple hours, really is a nice walk if you split it up, or when it's cooler in fall just do the whole thing as we will.
Such a nice trail going a good distance. It's behind my house and I see many people on it all the time. Great history information about the old railroad and Abraham Lincoln in Gettysburg. Love seeing it used for is intended purposes.
Nice bike path with historical significance. My husband & I enjoyed the quiet path through beautiful fields- some sections tree-lined others on the road but overall the whole path was very enjoyable. We did not encounter one other cyclist upon the path, so that was actually enjoyable to have it to ourselves. ¿¿
The this old railroad route through Ohio's Darke County is significant as this was the route that President Abraham Lincoln's Funeral Train took as passed through from Columbus, Ohio to Richmond, Indiana on its way to Lincoln's final resting spot in Springfield, Illinois. For this reason alone efforts should be made by Darke County and the State of Ohio to buy up the parts of the route that not part of the Darke County Park System and convert the rail bed into a proper trail. The current trail sections that are developed are pleasant but don't yet lead to any areas that are developed, such as the towns of Bradford, Gettysburg, and Greenville. the current on-road sections of this route are on lightly traveled paved farm country roads. They are very flat, but do not have any shoulders at all. The current mapped route shown here at TrailLink suggests riding the trail west of Gettysburg by riding east along US 36 to Gettysburg-Pitsburg Road and then left onto Hahn Road. US 36 is a very busy and fast roadway with lots of traffic. Although the shoulders along this roadway are wide you can avoid riding along it altogether if you follow the bike route along W. Main Street in Gettysburg and cross US 36 onto Mill Road and then on to Hahn. On the eastern end the current TrailLink map shows the trail route ending south of Bradford when you reach South Miami Street (Rte 721). I suggest going into Bradford to take a look at its Y-Yard Park, particularly if you are a railroad buff. I suggest using Harrison Avenue to take a less busy road into town and then left on School Street to reach the park. Google Earth and Google Maps currently label this trail the Ohio to Erie Trail which is what they also call the Piqua City Linear Park as well. Obviously there is a railroad connection between these two trails and work should be done to connect them.
** Now extends West to Harzell Rd.
Run this many times, it's a nice little out of the way path. Never crowded, even the parts where you are on the road are mostly clear because the roadway parallels Rt 36. Nice bridge near Gettysburg. Hope this one continues to grow in both directions.
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