As you might have guessed by now, I love having a stash of Greene County roadmaps in the glove compartment to browse when I’m looking for a forgotten town to check out or happen to run across a big rig making a first time delivery to a well site only to find GPS has failed and a map would be a mighty handy thing to have. On this trusty map, amid the little symbols for planes, fire houses and trail shelters on the Warrior Trail I’ve found the DCNR symbol for the bicycle trail that starts at Presque Isle State Park, Erie County and, keeping mostly to US Rt. 19, wanders south to Greene County then ends half a mile past Mt. Morris at the West Virginia line. It is a drive worth taking as the greenery of early summer turns every road into a shady lane.
Local bicyclists enjoy many of the back roads across the county and are a wonderful sight to see, taking the easy route for a few country miles before pedaling home. But shade or no shade, US Rt.19 is for the intrepid biker, according to pahighways.com.
Bicycle PA users are expected to be licensed drivers or at least 16 years old with several years of experience and able to take responsibility for personal safety and welfare.
Anyone who has taken this scenic trek from Washington to Waynesburg by way of Ruff Creek, then through town and rolling farmland south to Kirby and Mt. Morris knows what great sights those intrepid bikers will see as they navigate the ragged edges and patched stretches of one of the earliest paved roads in Pennsylvania.
When the Commonwealth set aside $50 million in 1918 to link every county seat with decent roads, United States Route 19 was already in the works. G. Wayne Smith tells us the project would take years to finish, along with other ongoing state byway projects that would link Waynesburg west to Rogersville, then south to Smith Creek and east from Morrisville to Jefferson and Dry Tavern.
The automobile age had arrived, and the rush was on to pave the rutted, sometimes impassible dirt roads that connected every town and village in the county. For a muddy, landlocked county it was a very big deal. When State Rt. 21 from Waynesburg to Carmichaels was finished in fall 1921, a Columbus Day auto parade left Waynesburg at 2 p.m., stopped in Jefferson for speeches at 3 p.m. and honked and hollered its way to Carmichaels. In Carmichaels, automobiles from every direction joined the thousand car parade back to Waynesburg for lunch at the Armory, a multiple bands concert and free movies at the Opera House and Eclipse theaters.
US Rt. 19 continued to be a bustling link to the outside world until Interstate 79 was finished in the 1970s. Now it is a shady, winding ride through Americana from Washington County to the Mason Dixon Line. The miles roll past quaint old farms and ancient remains of the Appalachian Mountains, once the highest in the world, now tree covered ridges that drop down to creeks like Calvin Run that follows the road to Mt. Morris.
Coming into Greene County from the north gives bikers a chance to catch their breath and grab something to drink at Rinky Dinks Roadhouse, the quintessential honky-tonk of the mid 20th century when US Rt.19 was a main artery especially on a Saturday night. Then it’s up the hill to Dividing Ridge and into Greene County then down the road to Ruff Creek then up another winding hill to a left hand turn onto Apple Hill Road. This very scenic secondary road rides the ridges past working farms and stretches of old growth forest that wraps around Waynesburg before dropping down into the valley, past more old farms and fancy hillside estates until the road becomes Porter Street, crosses High and Greene streets, crosses the railroad tracks to Orchard Street where it catches up with US Rt. 19.
Mt. Pleasant Methodist Church sits at the crest of the hill where Whitley Township begins and fine old farms keep much of the pastureland still cleared. Then the road drops down to a long stretch of bottomland punctuated with side roads, construction sites and buildings, picturesque barns, farmhouses and miles of fenced fields and steel gates.
On the map the word Cummins is written between Woodside and Pitcock roads.
Driving by, there is no visible indication that neighbors in the 1880s came here for their mail and whatever else they might need at the post office store that once stood by the “main highway six miles south of Waynesburg, three miles north of Kirby near Dyers Fork of Whitley Creek.”
The Cummins Family In America book at Cornerstone Genealogical Society traces a branch of the family tree to this spot on the map “where some of the family had a country store.” Another branch of the Cummins went on to settle in Cumberland Township. A.B. Cummins (1850-1926) was born on a farm near Carmichaels, graduated Waynesburg College, went west as a young man to became a lawyer involved in the business of railroads and ended up serving as governor of Iowa, 1902-08 then as a US Senator 1908-1925.
The bike trail follows the creek until it reaches Lemley Road then turns left for a few miles of farms and woodlands until it intersects Kirby Road, makes a right and returns to US Rt. 19 to the now forgotten town of Kirby. Then it’s a left to Mt. Morris, where Rising Creek Bakery and Cafe with its signature salt rising bread sandwiches and take home loaves waiting for a hungry rider or footloose traveller.
I’ve driven there many times on my scenic way to Morgantown to grab a loaf but today I don’t take the last seven miles past Polecat Road, across the tracks that go to Cumberland Mine, then a few miles where Interstate 79 runs parallel to US Rt.19 before it slips past the Firehouse and into Mt Morris. Today I double back to Waynesburg to explore another side road I caught sight of just past Mt. Pleasant Church.
Brick School Road has a cheerfully maintained red brick schoolhouse with paper skeletons peeking out the back window and a red school bus shed beside it. The road rolls and rambles past houses and farms then drops down to come out back on US Rt. 19. It is here I finally run into some local bicyclists enjoying a perfect afternoon ride.
Jera Meighen and her niece stop to talk. A horse pops its head out of the barn window for a pet.
It’s another beautiful day in the neighborhood of Greene County.