Prisma Health Swamp Rabbit Trail

The trail that almost wasn't

Today, the Prisma Health Swamp Rabbit Trail garners national recognition. The 28-mile trail system — which includes an 18-mile contiguous path connecting downtown Greenville and Travelers Rest, as well as an ever-growing network of trail spurs — saw 750,000 users in 2023 alone. Its annual economic impact on the communities surrounding the trail is in the millions of dollars. 

But few people realize just how close the project came to fizzling out. If not for the heroic efforts and visionary leadership from Upstate Forever’s Founder Brad Wyche and former Board Chair Carlton Owen and many other Greenville County stakeholders, the Prisma Health Swamp Rabbit Trail would never have happened.

The abandoned line

For several decades, a railroad popularly known as “the Swamp Rabbit” operated from downtown Greenville to River Falls.

In 1998, Railtex, which had previously acquired the line from Greenville & Northern Railroad, ceased its operations and was preparing to put the entire line on the market. Public acquisition of the line became Upstate Forever’s very first project, and likely could not have happened without the quick actions of Brad Wyche. Brad saw it as a breathtaking, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Greenville community and the Upstate — a chance to acquire the entire line and turn it into a trail connecting downtown to Furman and Travelers Rest.

Vision & action

Brad and the UF board worked with the national Rails to Trails Conservancy to place the line in the “Rail Trail Bank” to give Greenville County time to acquire it. “We were lining up private funding to acquire it ourselves if the County failed to do so,” says Brad. But the County [through the Greenville County Economic Development Corporation (GCEDC)] came through and purchased it in 1999.

Acquisition was essential, but it was only the first step. The Surface Transportation Board (STB) in Washington, D.C. had to officially approve the abandonment of rail service on the line in order to convert it to a trail. The GCEDC was initially reluctant to initiate the proceedings for abandonment.

In order to help people clearly see the enormous potential of the project, Carlton Owen stepped up and organized a group of volunteers to work every Saturday throughout the summer of 2005 to clear away the kudzu, briars and bushes from almost the entire length of the line. The effort was key to building strong public support for the establishment of a trail, and soon GCEDC filed a petition for abandonment with the STB.