Workers hired to build the Allegheny Portage Railroad in the 1830's created this pathway by digging, filling, and leveling the land and building a flat railroad bed between here and the Staple Bend Tunnel. Railroad employees called this now-abandoned trace the Long Level. As part of this pioneering railroad, workers, including many immigrants from Ireland and Wales, quarried stone from trailside rock outcrops. Masons used these stones to build culverts that kept the roadbed dry, and they trimmed sandstone into rectangular blocks called sleepers to support the railroad tracks. A few culverts and many sleepers are still in place, and stone foundations near the tunnel mark the sites of workshops, houses for workers, and probably a small store.

Photo: Mike Wintermantel

Photo: Mike Wintermantel

Photo: Mike Wintermantel

East Taylor, Pennsylvania · USA