58 min
Overview
Abundant and easily accessed lumber called entrepreneurs into these Coast Range foothills and this ongoing rails-to-trails project had its beginning in 1906 when Fred and Simcoe Chapman constructed the Portland & Southwestern Railroad in stages, logging as they went. As they moved higher into the hills, the Chapmans faced difficulties and sold out to Henry Turrish. One massive endeavor was tunneling through the Nehalem Divide, an unusual undertaking of great expense for a mere logging railroad. The 1,712-foot tunnel was completed in 1920 but not before the Nehalem Timber and Logging Company took over operations. Clarke & Wilson succeeded Nehalem Timber and then the former sold to Crown Zellerbach in 1944: Crown Zellerbach took up the tracks and used much of the alignment as a logging road, detouring up and over the divide as the trucks could not use the tunnel, which then fell into disrepair. Later, Hancock Timber became the owners and used the route to a lesser degree. Throughout the 1990s, Columbia County was in negotiations with Hancock over purchase of the road. The route eventually became public property in 2004 and a master plan for public use (hiking, biking, horse riding) was conceived. The trail, officially termed the Crown Z Linear Trail, is a work in progress and a reroute of Section 5, which heads up into forested hills owned by Weyerhaeuser, has been promulgated to take the route directly to Vernonia Lake and then the Vernonia Trailhead to hook up with the Banks-Vernonia State Trail. Chapman Landing may become more developed in the future. Recently, interpretive signs have been installed along the trail explaining local history. This is all secondary and tertiary woodland interspersed with farmland and rural dwellings. The trail surface is a deteriorating asphalt from Chapman Landing Park to the Ruley Trailhead. After this, it is packed gravel although in some patches, fresh gravel has been used to repair the surface. The trail uses Weyerhaeuser logging roads between the Wilark Trailhead and Kno
Trail Stats
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292 m
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Photos
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600px-CrownZellerbachTrailheadMap2
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250px-VernoniaLake3
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250px-Knott_St
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250px-Inside_the_Nehalem_Divide_Tunnel
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250px-Jackson_Creek_wetlands%2C_Crown_Zellerbach_Trail
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