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. 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, providing a vital link between central Missouri agriculture and the developing American Southwest while supporting existing towns and helping new towns such as Mokane and Tebbetts emerge. After severe flooding washed out several miles of track in the fall of 1986, and with repair costs high, railroad use declining, and the company in financial trouble, the MKT ceased operations, and on Oct. 4, 1986, trains 101 and 102 made the last run from Sedalia to Machens. The National Trails System Act Amendments of 1983 created railbanking to preserve railroad corridors by converting them to public trails for possible future rail use, and in April 1987 the Missouri Department of Natural Resources received a Certificate of Interim Trail Use for the Sedalia-to-Machens corridor and developed the route into a major trail. The first section of the trail, initially 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. The corridor from St. Charles to just past Sedalia was developed by 1996, the trail was extended to Clinton through a Union Pacific Railroad donation and opened from Sedalia to Clinton in September 1999, and the final 12-mile section between St. Charles and Machens opened in 2011, completing the 240-mile trail. The trail draws an estimated 400,000 users annually. Its creation and growth depended heavily on community and private support, especially from Ted and Pat Jones, whose initial $2.2 million donation helped acquire the MKT corridor and develop the trail, and from Edward Jones, which continued funding after Ted Jones’s death, aided reconstruction after the 1993 flood, supported openings and brochures, and helped sustain the trail’s legacy alongside other organizations and communities along the route.
