Over its first 20 years, Katy Trail State Park became one of the most successful rail-to-trail conversion projects in the United States and, as the nation’s longest developed rail-trail, was inducted into the national Rail-Trail Hall of Fame. The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, known as the Katy, began in the 1870s and ran through much of the Missouri River valley by the 1890s, arriving later than some Missouri railroads but providing a vital link between central Missouri agriculture and the rapidly developing American Southwest while helping towns along the corridor prosper and prompting new towns such as Mokane and Tebbetts to appear. In the fall of 1986, severe flooding washed out several miles of track, and because repairs were costly, rail use was declining, and the company faced financial trouble, operations ended; on Oct. 4, 1986, trains 101 and 102 were the last to use the corridor, and service from Sedalia to Machens ceased. Under the National Trails System Act Amendments of 1983, unused railroad corridors could be preserved for future transportation needs and used temporarily as recreational trails, and after the railroad stopped operating, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources obtained a certificate of interim trail use for the Sedalia-to-Machens corridor in April 1987 and used that opportunity to develop the trail. The first section, from Rocheport to McBaine, opened in April 1990, followed in August 1990 by a section from Augusta to just north of Defiance; by 1996 the corridor from St. Charles to just past Sedalia had been developed, and after a Union Pacific Railroad donation the trail was extended to Clinton, with the Sedalia-to-Clinton section opening in September 1999. Plans called for a final section from St. Charles to Machens and for the Rock Island Trail-Katy Connector from Windsor to Pleasant Hill. The park’s creation depended heavily on community support from Ted and Pat Jones, whose initial $2.2 million donation made acquisition of the MKT corridor and its development possible; after Ted Jones’s death, Pat Jones and Edward Jones continued supporting reconstruction after the flood of 1993, opening events, trail information, brochures, and broader support for the Katy Trail and Missouri state parks.