By: Charles Romans
Carter County Times
The nonprofit organization Trail Town is working to open up the natural beauty of Olive Hill and promote tourism. Trail Town President Jesse Oney said Trail Town was started in 2012 after major flooding in the area.
“We started looking at Olive Hill as a place we could have a major trail system,” Oney said. “We got a task force together and mapped the Red Trail out really well.”
And after that first step to establish non-motorized trails, the project grew.
Oney said the next to be mapped was the Blue Trail that follows waterways from Olive Hill to Carter Caves.
“It begins at the Depot in Olive Hill,” he said of the Blue Trail.
The Red Trail, he said, goes to what was the old city lake but is now called Firebrick Lake.
“We changed the name of it to Firebrick Family Recreational Park,” Oney said. “And we are making it into a park for everyone to use whether it be horseback riding, walking, or bicycle riding. If you want to bring a kayak to the lake, you can do that.”
“We have plans for a shelter house up there too,” he said of upcoming improvements. “We will be putting in restrooms there, and will be making the park bigger and easier for people to get into and out of.”
“Right now, there are three access points to the lake we can use,” Oney said. “One is on Perry Branch, there is the Ranch Road access, and the Garvin Ridge entrance.”
“We use Garvin Ridge as more of a maintenance entrance right now,” he said. “But anyone that wants to access it can use all three entrances.”
Everything the group does is to state specifications, Oney said. Even the prohibition of motorized vehicles is designed to prevent any kind of contamination to the land, and to ensure that the water system is not polluted.
“Any trail that crosses a stream, we have to treat that stream as a crucial natural resource because it is. Everything we do is EPA compliant.”
The group’s goal is to protect the lake while utilizing the land around it. The walking trails, bike trails, and horse trails will allow both local residents and tourists alike to enjoy the land while protecting it, Oney said.
“Right now, we have a minimal amount completed,” Max Hammond, who is affiliated with both Trail Town and the Warrior’s Path said of the project’s progress. “We are working through a volunteer effort, and we are going up there and building the trails properly in compliance with the Kentucky Office of Nature Preserves. And we are building them to the International Mountain Bike Association standards.”
The trails that Trail Town are building will be all earth trails, both Oney and Hammond said.
“There will be no necessity of bringing in any material that doesn’t already exist at the city lake,” Hammond said. “The only exception would be some gravel for expanded parking.”
“And that’s one thing that makes the project unique,” Hammond said. “According to the International Mountain Bike Association, this has the potential to be the finest mountain bike park east of the Mississippi.”
“The reason for that is our soil,” he explained. “It is primarily clay; the same clay that was used at our brick yard. That soil is moldable into almost any shape you could imagine.”
“Anything we build is going to stay the way we build it,” Oney said of the clay’s inherent value.
Currently Trail Town is working on building a bridge so that they will be able to open another trail. One bridge has been built already, but another is still needed. This trail, he said, will be designated the Purple Trail, and will be dedicated to one of the group’s volunteers who has gone above and beyond during the process. He predicts that trail opening will be near the end of February, Oney said.
The design of this Trail Town project was the result of a grant written to the International Mountain Bike Association.
“We were one of ten communities picked nationwide who received a grant to design the park,” Hammond said. “Once we had the design of the park, we went to the Department of Local Government and wrote a Recreational Trails Program grant. We were awarded $159,000 in funding for that.”
Both Oney and Hammond said that there had been a lot of work done on the trails in 2025, and they hope to make an equal amount of progress in the coming year. Anyone interested in learning more about the project and how they can volunteer should visit the Trail Town Facebook page. Oney said they are grateful for the community support they have received, and said the project would not be able to be completed without the residents of Olive Hill and beyond.
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
