From 1870 to 1988, the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad carried passengers and freight along a route tracing the Missouri River and became an important link between St. Louis and Texas after the line from New Franklin to Machens was completed in 1893. Known as the Katy, it later carried luxury service on the Texas Special to Dallas Fort Worth and San Antonio, but repeated flooding along the Missouri River flood plain damaged the line, and severe floods in 1986 washed out several miles of track. In 1988, the route from Sedalia to Machens was railbanked and donated to the State of Missouri, which converted the corridor into Katy Trail State Park, a 225-mile hiking and bicycling trail from St. Charles to Clinton. Along this corridor, Missouri River bluffs of Jefferson City dolomite and St. Peter sandstone rise above diverse habitats including forests, wetlands, valleys, prairies, pastureland, and farm fields that support abundant birdlife and other wildlife. The wetlands here, remnants of the Missouri floodplain landscape that Lewis and Clark encountered about 200 years ago, help cleanse water, reduce flooding, protect shorelines, recharge groundwater, and provide critical habitat for migrating and native species such as the Northern Leopard Frog. Before railroads, steamboat travel on the Missouri River was common but dangerous because storms, shifting channels, and submerged snags caused many wrecks, and on June 22, 1884, the steamboat Montana struck a railroad bridge near Bridgeton and sank, an event that signaled the decline of the great riverboat era.
