The Missouri-Kansas-Texas railroad operated along this route from 1870 to 1988, following the Missouri River with locomotives ranging from early wood-burning steam engines to coal-burning steam locomotives and later diesel engines. St. Louis became a major railroad gateway in the 1890s when the rail line from New Franklin to Machens was built, creating an important link in the MKT and the first rail line to enter Texas from the north. Completed in 1893, the Katy carried passengers and freight from St. Louis to Galveston, Texas, and in the early twentieth century its Texas Special luxury service connected St. Louis with Dallas, Fort Worth, and San Antonio. Passenger service declined after World War II, freight revenues faltered after 1957, passenger service ended between 1965 and 1970, and despite a 1976 government-guaranteed loan, the line continued to weaken until Union Pacific and the Missouri Pacific were permitted to purchase it in 1988; the companies merged on December 1, 1989, ending the Katy. Repeated flooding along the Missouri River flood plain caused washouts, and in 1986 flood damage severed several miles of track, ending runs between St. Charles and Sedalia. After Congress passed the National Trail System Act, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources acquired the abandoned corridor for interim recreational use and future transportation use, aided by a donation from Edward D. (Ted) Jones, and in 1991 Union Pacific Railroad donated another 33 miles from Sedalia to just east of Clinton, Missouri. Katy Trail State Park was created as the nation’s longest rails-to-trails corridor in the United States, part of the American Discovery Trail, with a portion also designated as part of the Lewis and Clark Heritage Trail. Officially dedicated in 1996, the trail extends 225 miles from St. Charles to Clinton, with plans to add 11 miles to Machens, and follows a flat course that uses the old railroad mileage system, beginning at mile 39. Along the route are woodland wetlands, prairies, pasturelands, and a corridor where nearly half the trail follows Lewis and Clark’s path up the Missouri River. The surrounding landscape also reflects the Missouri River’s earlier steamboat era, which began in 1819 when Captain John Nelson piloted the Independence from St. Louis to Franklin, Missouri, and reached its height between 1846 and 1866 despite hazardous channels, sandbars, and snags that wrecked many vessels. Steamboats, first mainly sidewheelers and after 1850 predominantly sternwheelers, carried cargo and passengers along the river for decades. The area is also linked by the 3.6 mile Creve Coeur Park Connector, a bicycle and pedestrian path on the Page Avenue / 364 bridge that connects the Katy Trail near mile 42.8 with Creve Coeur Park.
