This article was featured in the Tribune-Democrat on June 30, 2009.  By Kathy Mellott, Tribune-Democrat staff writer.

ST. MICHAEL - U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Johnstown, on Tuesday dedicated a nine-mile stretch of the Path of the Flood Trail from St. Michael to the Staple Bend Tunnel as a National Recreation Trail.

Visiting the south abutment of the Johnstown Flood National Memorial, Murtha reminisced about former Tribune-Democrat Publisher Richard Mayer's push for recreation trails 30 years ago.

"He started all of this stuff," Murtha said of Mayer's attempts to develop tourism in Cambria County when the steel mills started into decline.

"We talked about it, and we never looked back. The bike trails and the walking trails have been something important to the area."

Also helping to improve the region's image are a number of organizations working to clean up acid mine drainage from streams and rivers, Murtha said.

"That is what America is all about, the grassroots people thinking of these things," Murtha said.

Many people helped get the historic trail named to the national list, said Karl King, coordinator of the Main Line Canal Greenway, an Allegheny Ridge Corp. initiative.

Already on the list is the Ghost Town Trail, a 43-mile former rail line in Cambria and Indiana counties, said Dee Columbus, executive director of the Cambria County Conservation and Recreation Authority, which owns 6.5 miles of this newest designation.

The Ghost Town Trail is used by more than 70,000 people annually, officials estimate.

They come from many states, and the area has enjoyed numerous spin-off businesses as a result, Columbus said.

"It does help," Columbus said of the national designation from the U.S. Department of the Interior.

This latest endeavor took two years, King said.

Along with the Path of the Flood Trail, the Interior Department also designated six other stretches of trails in the western and central part of Pennsylvania, all part of what has been named the Pittsburgh to Harrisburg Main Line Canal Greenway.

Already on the national list, which traditionally opens the door to greater funding sources, is a small trail in the Cresson area and a seven-mile stretch of the Allegheny Portage Trail that runs down the mountain to Foot of Ten, outside Duncansville.