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We in the Linn County Trails Association (LCTA) subscribe to the motto We Make Trails Happen and the Grant Wood Trail (GWT) is an excellent example of this philosophy. For over ten years, the LCTA has actively and successfully promoted the establishment of trails in Linn County wherever and whenever possible. The GWT, however, has been a unique project for LCTA in that we not only raised money for the trail development but have also gone one step further and taken on a direct responsibility to actually buy and clear land and build a new trail with the help of volunteers insofar as possible and without the use of any tax dollars or help from any governmental agency. This has all happened in a seven-year period from 1998 and continuing through 2004.
The story of this trail really begins back in 1872 when the first rail line was constructed between Marion and Savanna, Illinois. This ultimately became part of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad which, in its heyday, carried a heavy load of rail traffic including popular passenger trains such as the City of Denver, as well as many freight trains. As hard times later fell upon the railroads, passenger service was discontinued in 1971 and freight service in 1980.
Most of the abandoned right-of-way (ROW) wound up in the hands of a holding company which began selling off portions of the ROW. A volunteer group in Jones County saw the potential for developing the ROW as a trail and took steps to acquire portions of the ROW for that purpose. In 1997, the Jones County group approached the LCTA and encouraged us to consider building a Linn County trail along the same ROW which would ultimately connect with their trail at the county line near Martelle. In recognition of the beautiful rolling hills and scenic countryside typical of Grant Wood paintings, the name Grant Wood Trail was chosen by the Jones County group, in honor of this local artist.
After investigating the situation, we in LCTA became enthused about the potential for this abandoned roadbed to become a very attractive recreational trail. Wanting to preserve that potential, in 1998 the Iowa Trails Council, on behalf of the LCTA, purchased various segments of ROW totaling nearly six miles spread out along the ten mile route from Highway 13 to the Jones County line. In eight different follow-up real estate transactions since then, LCTA has purchased or obtained easements on an additional 2.5 miles of ROW. Our initial goal was only to preserve the ROW and then donate it to a governmental entity, such as Linn County, that might have the interest and the resources to develop it into a very scenic trail. Since none of our members had ever actually built a trail, we did not anticipate doing any development work on the ROW that we initially acquired.
Excited as we were about the potential of the trail, we soon realized that there was a real need to gain support for such a trail by an actual demonstration of its possibilities. In the spring of 1999, therefore, LCTA's board of directors decided to take on the challenge of developing and building the initial 3.2 mile portion of the trail. This turned out to be a very daunting task as there were thousands of railroad ties to be removed, volunteer trees and tangled masses of vegetation to be cleared out, sinkholes to be filled, livestock fences to be repaired or replaced, grading to be done, gates and signs to be installed, trailhead parking lots to be built and surfaced and many other tasks. LCTA volunteers performed some of these tasks supplemented by outside contractors for the heavy duty work. It was a very busy but rewarding activity in many ways. Finally, with a lot of help from a lot of people, we were able to have a grand opening of the section of trail from Highway 13 to Oxley Road in September of 1999.
After successfully opening the 3.2 mile section to the public, we were motivated to clear still another section, 2.1 miles long, from Creekside Road to Springville Road. This posed a particularly difficult problem in that a former railroad bridge across Simmons Creek had been removed years earlier and sold for scrap leaving a 70-foot wide void in the trail route. The estimated cost of a new prefabricated trail bridge was well over $100,000, far more than we could afford. A trail volunteer then came up with the idea of using an 89-foot railroad flatcar to span the creek. We located some surplus flatcars stored in a farm field east of Clarence, Iowa. These had been in a train wreck but we found one that was very usable for our application. We purchased the flatcar and then Duane Coonrod of Coonrod Crane Service very generously offered to haul it to the creek site and then later installed it across the bridge abutments at no charge to the LCTA! We then blacktopped the flatcar deck, built approaches and installed chain link fence along the sides of the bridge. The total expenditures for the bridge were only about 10% of the projected cost of a new prefabricated bridge. By 2003 we were then able to open this new section of the trail to the public all the way to the community of Paralta on Springville Road. Paralta, incidentally, is not a well-known name to most people now but it was a center of considerable train activity at one time and had its own control tower, depot, stockyard, post office, and grocery store – all of which are long gone.
At the end of 2004, more than half of the ROW has been cleared and is in use as a trail. LCTA has invested more than a quarter million dollars in the trail so far using only donations from individuals and corporations and grants from private foundations. Since we are a non-profit organization, we have been unable to apply for government grants.
We could not hope to list all of the many contributors of money, volunteer services or other support, but any list should certainly include the Hall-Perrine Foundation, Duane Coonrod, the Katz and Verhille and Klopfenstein families in Marion and the many dedicated LCTA volunteers who have not only contributed money but have brought out their chainsaws and shovels to help build this trail and have worked hard to keep it maintained over the last five years or more.
Where do we go from here? It is anticipated that the western end of the GWT will someday be extended to Squaw Creek Park and, of course, the eastern end should someday connect with the GWT that our Jones County friends are independently developing. Their trail will run east to such former railroad towns as Martelle, Morley, and Olin. The Linn County part of the GWT needs additional development work including applying a crushed limestone surface to the more than five miles of trail that are currently open to the public and then clearing the remainder of the ROW and limestoning it. This will all require additional resources beyond the capabilities of the LCTA organization.
As LCTA's development of the trail so far has conclusively demonstrated its great potential, LCTA has now proposed that all of the over 100 acres of trail property from Highway 13 to Jones County be donated to the Linn County Conservation Board. The Conservation Board could then provide the professional expertise and resources needed to complete this diamond-in-the-rough trail. It appears that the Conservation Board and the Board of Supervisors are both supportive of this idea and further discussions are planned with both parties.
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