07/24/2026
Finished with this mural. 🤎
Before this was a trail, it was a railroad.
Chartered in 1856 the Columbia Tap Railroad, known as “The Sugar Road” connected the sugar and cotton plantations of Brazoria County to Houston. Much of the railroad grade was built by enslaved laborers whose work fueled one of the South’s largest plantation economies. During the Civil War, sections of the rails were removed and repurposed for the Confederate war effort. After emancipation, the railroad and its surrounding system relied on convict leasing, a system that continued the exploitation of Black labor under another name.
Rail service along this corridor continued for more than a century before ending in the 1980s. Today, those same tracks have become the Columbia Tap Trail.
This mural is designed like a scrapbook, each torn page revealing a chapter of history that many of us were never taught. Every section tells part of the story. From the enslaved laborer driving railroad spikes, to the Pullman Porter standing with dignity, to the jogger and cyclist reclaiming this space today.
Walk it slowly.
Read the ground beneath your feet.
Every step is layered with history.
Once a Railroad. Now a Trail.
📍Third Ward, Houston 🖤
Columbia Tap Trail
