Missouri Page 2

All photos courtesy Columbia Parks and Recreation

Ties That Bind: A New Trail System Is Creating—and Strengthening—Connections in Columbia, Mo.

Posted 08/26/14 by Katie Harris in Building Trails, Trail Use | Tagged with Connected Systems, Missouri, Products of Good Policy, State and Federal Programs

Columbia, Mo., is a city with a few tricks up its sleeve. Its charm starts slowly, unassumingly, disguised as just another Midwestern college town, but after spending some time there, exploring the tree-lined streets by foot or riding part of the trail system, you may just become hooked. And you wouldn’t be the first to fall under Columbia’s charismatic spell.

Photo by Eddie Watson, courtesyColumbia Parks and Recreation Department

Missouri's MKT Nature and Fitness Trail

Posted 08/01/14 by Laura Stark in America's Trails | Tagged with Missouri, Trail Destinations, Trail of the Month

True to its name, within minutes, travelers on the MKT Nature and Fitness Trail are spirited away from lively downtown Columbia, Mo., and taken into the forest. Although the city is so close at hand, it's forgotten in the company of wild turkeys, deer and a flash of orange as a fox darts across the path. The trail—just a tad shy of nine miles—is serene with the soft crunch of feet on crushed stone, the rustle of leaves overhead and the gentle gurgle of its many creek crossings.

Grant's Trail, Missouri

Posted 11/01/12 by Laura Stark in America's Trails | Tagged with Connected Systems, Heritage and Restoration, Missouri, Trail Destinations, Trail of the Month

Only 10 miles from the famed Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Mo., fittingly lies Grant's Trail. Like the arch, which was built as a monument to westward expansion, the trail follows a former rail line that set out with an ambitious goal to reach all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Even though the tracks never made it that far, the trail has preserved much of the corridor's pioneering history and spirit.

Photo © Metro Transit - St. Louis

Outside St. Louis, Rail-With-Trail Boosts Capacity of Transit System

Posted 10/17/12 by Rails-to-Trails Conservancy in Trail Use, Building Trails | Tagged with Connected Systems, Missouri, Rail-with-Trail, Urban Pathways

In St. Clair County, Ill., on the outskirts of St. Louis, Mo., the county transit district continues to extend its heralded MetroBikeLink Trail, a paved, multi-use trail that provides a fast and efficient connection from local neighborhoods to the metro stations.

Photo © Gloria Ballard

A Pocket-Sized Piece of History From the Katy Trail

Posted 03/16/12 by Rails-to-Trails Conservancy in America's Trails | Tagged with Heritage and Restoration, Missouri

For the Spring/Summer 2012 issue of Rails to Trails magazine, we had asked our readers, "What is your favorite part about rail-trail history?" One of the most memorable responses came from Gloria Ballard of Nashville, Tenn., who wrote about making a surprising connection between family history and rail history while researching a rail-trail excursion in Missouri. We thought we'd share her story!

Missouri's Katy Trail State Park

Posted 09/01/07 by Rails-to-Trails Conservancy in America's Trails | Tagged with Best Of, Hall of Fame, Missouri, Trail Destinations, Trail of the Month

Heath Meriwether, former executive editor of the Detroit Free Press, spent his childhood in Columbia, Mo., in the 1950s and 60s. His family lived only a few miles from the once sprawling Missouri-Kansas-Texas (or Katy) Railroad, but Meriwether mostly remembered the rail corridor as a forlorn, almost dislocated strip of community history. "When I was growing up," he says, "the Katy was a down-at-the-mouth, dilapidated railroad."