A team from Chattooga County attended the 2022 Gateway Communities Workshop late last year after the county was named an “Appalachian Gateway Community” and the team has a plan for “branding” Chattooga County’s trails into a network that can be marketed to outdoor enthusiasts.

Appalachia’s gateway communities are towns bordering on publicly owned lands, like national and state parks and forests. To help these communities develop thoughtful strategies around some of Appalachia’s most treasured assets,  The Conservation Fund launched the Appalachian Gateway Communities Initiative (AGCI) in 2007 with support from ARC and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Olivia Knauss  with Paradise Garden, Susan Locklear with Summerville Main Street, Harold Cunningham with Friends of Sloppy Floyd State Park, Jeff Gardner with the US Forest Service, and Cindy McGraw with the Chattooga Chamber, have a project in mind to brand all of Chattooga’s wonderful trails into a cohesive network in order to create a unique experience for visitors and residents and to build on our sense of place.
The team says more information on the idea will be released in the near future.