Tale of a Trail

Tale of a Trail. . From 1889 to 1929 the Belmont Spur Railroad ran from Tilson Junction to serve Belmont and its Mill. The route crossed from the Winnipesaukee River on a wooden trestle bridge below Silver Lake and then crossed the Tioga River twice. The final destination ended at the depot and freight sheds which were right here on this spot. A wooden footbridge also crossed the Tioga River to the Mill. , The Belmont Spur Railroad was discontinued in 1929 and the rails and Winnipesaukee River bridge were removed. The footbridge washed out in the flood of 1936. Remains of the two railroad bridges over the Tioga River were removed when the town's interceptor sewer was installed under the old rail bed in 1980. , In 2009, Belmont embarked on a multi-year revitalization program for the town, which included building a Pavilion next to the Mill and converting the old railroad bed into a recreational trail. A group of volunteers worked with town officials to get the railroad bed and depot site donated and then secured Land and Water Conservation grants. With these grants the Pavilion was built and an offer was made to buy an unused 153 foot long covered bridge from Dover, New Hampshire for one dollar. , Many of those same volunteers went to Dover, disassembled the covered bridge into three sections and then moved it by truck to its new home in Belmont. Their next feat was to build four new concrete abutments and then reassemble the 153-foot-long bridge into two separate bridges. , One bridge was placed behind the Belmont Mill over the Tioga River and was named the Slippery Rock Bridge. The other piece of the bridge was placed 0.7 miles down this trail where it is used to also cross the Tioga River. , The Belmont Village Spur Rail Trail runs over two miles along the old rail bed near the Tioga River for most of the way and ends on South Road. The trail provides a quiet walk or bike ride for three seasons and a snowshoe or cross country ski track in the winter. This project showed very dedicated and hardworking volunteers and how they worked diligently with the town government to provide an outstanding recreational area to Belmont at a very low cost.