Katy Trail State Park became one of the most successful rails-to-trails conversion projects in the United States over its 25-year history and, as the nation’s longest developed rail-trail, was inducted into the national Rail-Trail Hall of Fame. Its route grew from the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, or Katy, which began in the 1870s, ran through much of the Missouri River valley by the 1890s, linked central Missouri agriculture with the developing American Southwest, added to Missouri’s prosperity, and helped support existing towns while prompting new ones such as Mokane and Tebbetts. After severe flooding in the fall of 1986 washed out several miles of track, and with repair costs high, rail use declining, and the company in financial trouble, the MKT ceased operations; on Oct. 4, 1986, trains 101 and 102 made the final run from Sedalia to Machens. The National Trails System Act Amendments of 1983 had created railbanking to preserve railroad corridors by converting them to public trails while reserving them for possible future rail use, and in April 1987 the Missouri Department of Natural Resources received a Certificate of Interim Trail Use for the corridor from Sedalia to Machens. The first section of the trail, originally called the Missouri River State Trail, opened in April 1990 between Rocheport and McBaine, another section opened in August 1990 from Augusta to just northeast of Defiance, and in 1991 the trail was officially renamed Katy Trail State Park to honor its railroad history. The corridor from St. Charles to just past Sedalia was developed by 1996, a Union Pacific Railroad donation allowed the extension to Clinton and the opening of the Sedalia-to-Clinton section in September 1999, and the final 12-mile section between St. Charles and Machens opened in 2011, completing the 240-mile trail. The park’s creation and growth depended heavily on community and private support, especially from Ted and Pat Jones, whose initial $2.2 million donation made acquisition and development of the corridor possible; after Ted Jones’s death in 1990, Pat Jones and Edward Jones continued supporting reconstruction after the 1993 flood, trail promotion, and broader trail efforts, while other organizations and communities also helped build, connect, and sustain the trail.
