St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Missouri clears the path for a companion to the Katy Trail
HENLEY, Mo. • Other than a bent sign marking this tiny stop on the long-gone Rock Island Railroad, there isn’t much left. The feed mill closed. So did the sandwich shop, store and bank.
Only a few stout stragglers remember when trains, loaded with grain and lumber, connected Henley to the outside world.
“There were a lot of hobos, too,” said Cecil Roark, 77, leaning against a pickup, hood propped open.
Bankruptcy and nature quieted things down in the 1980s. Thickets of trees and vines rooted between the rails, turning the old corridor into an arboretum.
Now, a salvage crew is working seven days a week to reclaim it for the Spandex era. This time, cyclists will probably be pedaling through Henley and other picturesque towns that many have never heard of.
Ameren, which bought the Rock Island corridor in 1999 through a subsidiary, is donating 191 miles of it to the state. First the brush must be cleared and the rail and ties removed, which could take at least two years.
“This line is being abandoned and donated to Missouri Department of Natural Resources for use as a bike trail,” Jeff Trammel, an Ameren spokesman, said in an email about the 144-mile section that runs cross-state from Windsor to Beaufort, west of Union.
Cyclists and hikers, of course, are salivating. The route is loaded with long tunnels and bridges, including spans over the Gasconade and Osage rivers. It’s supposed to link with the Katy Trail, touted as the longest “completed” rail-trail in the country.
