By SUSAN EVANS
EBENSBURG — A casual conversation last month about whether Cambria Township should provide an entrance to the Ghost Town Trail is starting a tiff within the community.
Not in my backyard, say residents Mary Miller and Tina Illig.
Since first hearing the suggestion in April, the women have painstakingly measured distances from the Ebensburg trail entrance to points in their Mylo Park neighborhood.
Put it in Revloc instead, they told supervisors at last week’s meeting. The distances are longer from Revloc to a trail entrance, and besides, the ever-thorny debate about how private some private alleys really are could be avoided.
The trail begins in Ebensburg and goes through Cambria Township and then to Dilltown, Vintondale and Nanty Glo.
It follows the route of the old Cambria and Indiana Roalroad, a short line that once connected a string of coal mines and their towns in eastern Cambria and western Indiana counties.
Last month Robert “Buzzy” Shook, chairman of the supervisors, said that in meetings he attended, county officials stated that having a trail entrance in the township could open doors to more types of community development funds and would boost the township’s recreation inventory
Supervisors at their last meeting agreed to pursue the idea, promising to meet with the Cambria County Conservation and Recreation Authority about locating a trail entrance in the Mylo Park neighborhood or the village of Revloc.
“We would have to provide parking, and we would share any drawings or designs with Conservation and Recreation,” Shook said.
He reassured the Mylo Park women last week that all options would be looked at, and that the township entrance idea was merely “in the talking stages.”
Miller said the Mylo Park entrance idea was not a good one, even in the talking stage.
“This would raise private property issues and is not needed,” she said.
Shook responded that although the alleys are private property, they carry right of way access for others who need to use them.
“The issue here is one of government funding, and whether the township would benefit from expanding its recreation inventory. But at the same time, we don’t want to do something negative,” he said.
Area officials tout the Ghost Town Trail as donating to local history.
Along the route, markers show hikers where small “coal-patch towns” once existed.
The trail also passes huge piles of waste coal and remnants of mining buildings and artifacts.
Hikers also can see Eliza Furnace, where iron was produced before the steel-making boom in Johnstown.
