History
Conversion of right-of-way to a trail was made possible by the National Trails System Act of 1968. In 1982, the city of Columbia opened the M.K.T. Trail on an abandoned spur of the Katy as one of the first rails-to-trails pilot projects in the United States.
On October 4, 1986, floodwater from the Missouri River severely damaged the track along the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad's route from Sedalia to Machens, Missouri. The route had been washed out and repaired many times, but this time, railroad officials decided not to return the tracks to service. Trains were re-routed, and the right-of-way was to be abandoned. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources purchased the right-of-way with a donation from Edward D. "Ted" Jones and Pat Jones of Williamsburg and St. Louis. In 1990, the first segment of the trail was officially opened in Rocheport.
In 1991, the Union Pacific Railroad donated 33 miles (53 km) of right-of-way from Sedalia]] to Clinton.
The trail was initially planned for completion in 1994. However, the Great Flood of 1993 damaged 75 miles (121 km) of the original 126 miles (203 km) of the trail. The completed trail from St. Charles to Sedalia was finally opened in 1996; the section from Sedalia to Clinton opened in 1999.
In 2011. the trail was expanded to include the corridor from St. Charles to Machens.
Plans are also underway to expand the trail to the suburbs of Kansas City and downtown St. Louis. A 2002 study by the Mid-America Regional Council lays out options, including a deal with AmerenUE to allow the use of its unused Rock Island Corridor rail line. Missouri Governor Matt Blunt asked Ameren to allow the use of the Rock Island Corridor for this purpose as compensation for a flood which devastated Johnson's Shut-ins State Park after the failure of a dam owned by Ameren. A settlement to this effect was reached in 2007, although no date has been given for project completion.
There is an effort to create a four-state trail system using several trails already in existence including the Katy. This "quad state" trail would connect Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska.
Read more about this topic: Katy Trail State Park
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—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
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“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)