For most of the last decade, if you asked a Covington resident about the Cricket Frog Trail, you'd get some version of the same answer: it's coming along, parts of it are open, check back next year. That answer was accurate for a long time. It stopped being accurate in November 2025, and a lot of people in this town still haven't gotten the memo.
The trail follows an old Central of Georgia Railway spur laid down in 1893, the same corridor that once carried passenger service between Porterdale, Covington, Macon, and Savannah before the last cars on the line carried nothing but wood chips to a pulp plant. Newton Trails picked up a long-term lease on the abandoned right-of-way in 2016 and started paving in short stretches: half a mile here, a mile there, a lot of gravel sections in between that were fine for a mountain bike but not much else. For years, the honest description of the Cricket Frog Trail was "half-finished." That description held right up until the Alcovy River bridge got fixed.
What Actually Closed the Gap
The trail had a hole in the middle of it for a long time: a scenic 310-foot trestle bridge over the Alcovy River that had fallen into disrepair, splitting the route in two. Riders could do the Covington side or the Mansfield side, but not both in one trip. That changed when the final paving segment was completed and the bridge work wrapped, and the Rockdale Newton Citizen reported that the trail was open continuously from Covington to Zeigler Road near Beaver Park in Mansfield, with a ribbon-cutting held that November.
That's 14.25 continuous paved miles, no more choosing a side. You can start at the parking deck on Elm Street, pass north of the historic Covington Square, and keep going until you're standing in Mansfield without once getting off pavement to detour around an unfinished section.
This followed an earlier, smaller milestone that a lot of residents actually did notice at the time: the completion of the trail's stretch within Covington's own city limits, running from Eagle Drive past Legion Field toward the Downtown Square. Mayor Steve Horton called that moment "a long time in the making" when the ribbon cut on that portion, and he wasn't exaggerating. What most people missed is that finishing the in-town piece and finishing the through-connection to Mansfield were two separate events, years apart. The first one got the headlines. The second one, the one that actually makes the whole trail usable end to end, happened quietly enough that plenty of longtime residents still think of the Cricket Frog Trail the way they did in 2020: a nice idea that isn't done yet.
It's done.
Three Ways to Walk This Fall
The Cricket Frog Trail isn't the only option, and depending on how much time you have on a Saturday morning, it might not even be the right one.
| Trail | Distance | Surface | What It Connects |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cricket Frog Trail | 14.25 mi (Covington to Mansfield) | Paved | Covington Square, Alcovy River bridge, downtown Mansfield |
| Turner Lake Park Loop | 3 mi | Paved and unpaved | Turner Lake Complex, disc golf course, accessible from the Square via Clark Street |
| Eastside Trail | 2.5 mi | Wooded path with boardwalks | Chimney Park, Newton County Public Library, Eastside High School |
If you've got forty-five minutes and a dog who needs to burn off energy before lunch, the Turner Lake loop behind the Turner Lake Complex is the better call. It's a mix of paved and unpaved path around a 26-acre lake, with an outdoor classroom and an old homesite foundation along the nature trail spur, and it sits inside a 158-acre park that also hosts one of the more highly rated disc golf courses in the area. The Eastside Trail is the quieter, shadier option, running through Chimney Park with a handful of wooden boardwalks over wetland sections before it lets out near Eastside High School. Neither of these requires the kind of planning the full Cricket Frog run does. They're closer to a lunch-break walk than a weekend project.
The One Closure Worth Checking Before You Go
If you tried to ride the trail last spring and hit a dead stop at Conyers Street, that wasn't your imagination and it wasn't the trail being unfinished again. The City of Covington closed that crossing from April 21 through April 30, 2026, for a stormwater project, with a marked detour routing riders off the trail at Thompson Avenue and back on at Pemberton Drive. That closure is long resolved by now, but it's a useful reminder that this corridor still runs through an active city, and stormwater work, road projects, and the occasional downed tree after a storm are part of using a rail-trail rather than reasons to write it off. Check the city's recent news page before a long ride if it's been a while since you were last out there.
Where to Refuel
A 14-mile trail needs a payoff on both ends, and Covington has real ones now, not just the standard highway exit options.
On the Square itself, Mystic Grill has rooftop seating that looks straight out over the historic courthouse, and its "Vampire Diaries" pedigree draws a steady stream of visitors, but the food and the view work fine for someone who just walked in off the trail with no interest in the show. It's the kind of spot where you can sit outside, order something, and watch the Square do its evening thing.
Off the trail entirely but worth knowing about, Chicken Salad Chick opened at the newly built Jackson Market on Highway 278 in November 2025, the first location of its kind in Newton County. Before it opened, the nearest one was in Loganville or Snellville, which meant a real drive for anyone in Covington craving it. The opening brought 43 new jobs to the area and the company marked the occasion with a donation to Camp Twin Lakes, a detail that matters less for your lunch plans than it does for understanding how much retail and restaurant development has been landing in Covington over the past year.
The Calendar Catches Up
The Cricket Frog Trail isn't the only thing that quietly finished catching up to itself this year. The Covington Farmers Market at Heirloom Park runs most Saturdays from mid-May through the end of August, so if you haven't made it out yet, you've got a narrow window left before it wraps for the season.
After that, the Square's fall calendar takes over:
- Every Thursday in October, the Arts Association in Newton County hosts Live at Lunch concerts on the Square
- October 17, the Covington Fall Festival on the Square runs 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., with the Square closed to vehicle traffic for the day
- Final Friday Flicks continues its pattern of outdoor movie nights on the Square through the fall
- November 19, the city holds its annual Lighting of the Square
None of this is new programming invented for this year. What's new is that for the first time in a while, the trail leading into town and the events happening on the Square aren't disconnected from each other. You can walk or bike the Cricket Frog Trail into downtown, land at the Square in time for a Thursday lunch concert, and not have spent the day working around a gap in the route that used to force a car trip instead.
That's the actual change worth knowing about this fall. Not a new restaurant, not a new festival, but a trail that spent nearly a decade being described in the future tense finally earning the present one.
If you're already thinking about what a home near that trail corridor, the Square, or Jackson Market might be worth given how much has opened up in the neighborhood this year, The Legacy Real Estate Group knows Covington and the rest of Newton County well enough to walk you through it. Reach out when you're ready, or start with a free instant home valuation to see where things stand.
