Betting on The Baileys — community members look to a trail system to rally business in a small Appalachian town

Chauncey is a small village of 1,000 residents just a few miles north of Athens Ohio and it was once considered a boon town and was the site for major extractive industries in the area.

However, with the fallout of the coal mining industry in the region after the Second World War, Chauncey, like many other “Little Cities of Black Diamonds,” had their livelihoods taken from them faster than they knew.

But villages like Chauncey don’t give up and die.

Village Mayor Amy Renner, historian Tom O’Grady, Baileys Trail System program assistant at Rural Action Jasmine Facun, and startup lodging owner Laura Sowers all discuss why they’re betting on The Baileys, a new mountain bike path that just opened up a trailhead in town.

Here’s the story of how one small town is battling its way back to prosperity through the new boon for southeast Ohio — eco-tourism:

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