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[Identification of item], North Carolina Rail-Trails Records, MC 265, NCSU Libraries' Special Collections Research Center.
Gift of Anthony Reevy, 1999 (Accession 1999.0008) and North Carolina Rail-Trails, 2011 (Accession 2011.0149), 2012 {Accession 2012.0080 and 2012.0156), gift of Tony Reevy (Accession 2013.0070)
Processed by Jane V. Charles; Nancy J. Kaiser
Completed July, 1999; October 2000; Updated by Judy Allen Dodson, March 2010; Updated by Judy Allen Dodson 2011; updated by Jennifer Baker April 2013
North Carolina Rail-Trails, a volunteer organization supported by dues, gifts, and grants, began as a steering committee at the North Carolina Greenways Conference in Charlotte on June 3, 1988. North Carolina Rail-Trails (NCRT), headquartered in Durham, became incorporated on March 12, 1990. NCRT is a charter member of the North Carolina Center for Nonprofits and the Environmental Federation of North Carolina, a Durham-based organization that endeavors to both protect and preserve the state's natural resources. NCRT's purpose is threefold: to monitor the state's rail system, to pursue corridor preservation, and to both retrieve and convert rail corridors to public trails. NCRT coordinates projects among local, state, and federal agencies and organizations.
Since 1989 NCRT has published a quarterly newsletter called "Little Toot," which informs members and interested citizens about activities of the organization, as well as the status of rail-trail projects throughout the state. NCRT's Board of Directors meets quarterly at various project locations in North Carolina. Members of the Board represent a variety of interests, including bicycling, hiking, equestrian, historic, conservation, preservation, and economic. NCRT, along with the North Carolina Railroad Company, Friends of the State Parks, and the North Carolina Sierra Club Chapter, has introduced railbanking legislation through the state Rails Council, legislative research committees, and the North Carolina General Assembly.
The following organizations have given grants to the NCRT: the NC Division of Parks and Recreation, the Mary Duke Biddle and Bryan Family foundations, and the North Carolina Rural Center.
This collection consists of organizational records and reference material that North Carolina Rail-Trails (NCRT) both created and used to facilitate the operation of the organization. The bulk of the collection consists of correspondence, NCRT meeting minutes and agendas, brochures, flyers, several newsletters, including "Little Toot," newspaper and magazine articles, essays for "Little Toot" by Anthony Reevy, past historian and vice chair of NCRT, work plans, proposals, maps, essays on North Carolina rail-trails and railways, legal documents including financial statements, organizational development and strategic planning records and copies of ratified senate and house bills.
Organizational records include plans and updates on the American Tobacco Trail, correspondence between members of the NCRT Board of Directors, "Little Toot" articles, newspaper, magazine, and journal articles about greenways and rail trails throughout North Carolina and the United States, a copy of the 1991 North Carolina Greenway Advisory Board report, and North Carolina rail corridor updates. Also included are lists of the NCRT Board of Directors from 1990 until 1999, information on the Land Trust Alliance, various legal documents, NCRT meeting minutes from 1990 until 2013, a collection of "Little Toot" newsletters from 1989, with few gaps, flyers and brochures that pertain to both local and national rail trails and greenway and rail trail organizations, and various North Carolina rail trail proposals and plans. Copies of ratified Senate and House bills that pertain to the approval of land and rail corridor preservation, the provision of rail revitalization funds, and the regulation of leasing rail corridors are also housed here. Records are arranged topically. Placement of papers within each folder reflects chronological arrangement.