Hank Parke, Who Brought the Trail to Somerset County, Dies
Henry “Hank” Black Parke, who founded the Somerset County trails association in 1987 and spent two decades building the 41 miles of the Great Allegheny Passage that cross the county, died August 27 at 75.
Henry “Hank” Black Parke, who spent twenty years turning an abandoned rail grade into the 41 miles of the Great Allegheny Passage that cross Somerset County, died Thursday, August 27. He was 75.
Every bicycle that has rolled through Confluence, Rockwood, Garrett and Meyersdale for the past thirty years traces back to a report he read in 1986. Joseph Kupec had written it, and it argued that the abandoned Western Maryland grade between Ohiopyle and Cumberland could be a trail. Parke pulled together a group of cyclists and outdoors people, had Kupec present his findings, and on June 1, 1987, they incorporated the Somerset County Rails to Trails Association, known today as the Somerset County Recreation & Trails Association.
Then came the slow part. Parke and co-founders Greg Chapelli and George Kaufman spent years in meetings with CSX Corporation to acquire the old Western Maryland right-of-way. Ground was broken at Rockwood on April 24, 1992. The first seven miles, Rockwood to the Pinkerton Low Bridge, opened in 1993. The final nine miles of the county’s section opened in May 2006, with celebrations at the Big Savage Tunnel and in Meyersdale.
He was an original board member of the Allegheny Trail Alliance, incorporated in 1996, the group that stitched separate county trails into one Great Allegheny Passage. He also organized trail cleanups in Rockwood, on the theory that people take care of what they have worked on.
“Even as optimistic as I was, I didn’t imagine far enough what this could be,” Parke said in 2017. “It’s been pretty incredible.”
Visitation was from 2 to 7 p.m. today, Sunday, August 30, at the Hauger-Zeigler Funeral Home in Somerset. A viewing follows from 9 to 10 a.m. Monday at the First Christian Church in Somerset, with the funeral service there at 10 a.m., the Reverend J. Matthew Deal officiating.
The family has asked that memorial donations go to the Somerset County Recreation & Trails Association(opens in new tab).
He gave the trail twenty years. The rest of us can help keep it up.
All Photos are Paul g. Wiegman.