Prairie Sportsman

(gentle music) - [Narrator] We have over 600 plus miles of paved trail in the state of Minnesota, yet southwest Minnesota, we only see 14.

This is the Trail Minnesota forgot.

After 55 years, it's time for us to tell our story.

(gentle music) - [Chris] There's not a lot of opportunities for bicycling in southwestern Minnesota but this is one place that there is.

- In the late 1960s, this railroad right of way was acquired by the Minnesota Conservation District, and in 1967 the legislature made it a Casey Jones State Trail.

On May 16th, 1970, it was actually opened and dedicated as Minnesota's first segment of cross country recreational trail.

- We've got eight miles of paved trail starting in Pipestone and going almost to the city of Woodstock.

There's an additional two miles of gravel trail that connects us to Woodstock.

- [Deb] This is a considered a dual tread trail.

There's a horse trail and then it's walking, biking.

It is non motorized except for snowmobiles so in the winter, snowmobiles can use it.

- [Chris] Of the state trails I visited in Minnesota, this is by far the most premier prairie trail.

I bike the Root River Trail and a few others of our state trail and they go through some fantastic forest.

But what you miss is that landscape that exists in southwestern Minnesota.

Over the years, some of it has been grazed but we've got native prairie right through the middle of this trail and really spectacular.

The wildflowers here in June, July and August are fantastic.

Actually, our state trail corridors are open for public hunting and really nice opportunities for pheasant hunting along the trail as well as just a good opportunity for people to bike through prairies.

(gentle music) - But it was in 2005, we actually put together a master plan.

It reignited this group called the Friends actually put it together and it reignited the desire for a trail.

We wanna be consistently getting money and funding so that we can realize our vision of a.... we have a hundred mile vision to actually, Redwood Falls.

In the 2021, DNR received $840,000 to rehabilitate the north segment of the Currie Loop Trail and we receive $700,000 to continue and pave the last final two miles to Woodstock.

And we've attempted several times on the state bonding dollars, but we're usually cut.

Trails an easy cut, especially down here - [Chris] Here, the railroad grade that the Casey Jones sits on, the existing parts of it, we own just about all of it but a lot of the railroad grade has been removed over the years and that could tie into it and is currently farmed.

There's just not a lot of that railroad grade to purchase.

We're sitting at some of the best farmland in the world, and so getting that land for trails is a hard sell to a lot of our neighbors.

- I remember when I first started on the friends group we actually had a town meeting in Lake Wilson and you have some there, just some unwilling landowners.

And so sometimes property changes hands and we just continue looking for alternate routes or we will attempt to get the rail back from the landowner.

(gentle music) It would actually become a destination trail 10 miles to Woodstock, eat, get something to drink.

Actually will cross a Buffalo Ridge which contains all the wind towers which you can see in the background here and then you'll come down into Lake Wilson.

We offer two lakes.

We have the North lake and the South Lake.

You continue on to Hadley there's excellent fishing in the lake there.

And in Slayton, they have a lot of history there.

There's museums there and then there's what they call the Currie loop over at Currie Minnesota.

- The idea of trail came about in the early 1990s and finally with construction and opening in about 95, 96.

When the trail was first established, it was a cooperative effort between Murray County and DNR, so it wasn't considered a state trail it was considered a regional trail.

That's the 6.2 mile loop.

About 10 years later, Murray County, for whatever reason decided to step away from that.

And then with the trail kind of hanging out there it became part of the state trail system and then therefore became known as the Casey Jones State Trail - Currie Loop with the hopes that someday the trail was gonna make a full connection from Pipestone all the way through to the Currie Loop and then eventually up to Walnut Grove and Redwood Falls.

So it opened up to people a whole new part of the park that they wouldn't normally see before.

It gives them appreciation for the lake, for the prairie along the way.

When it was first built the trail surface was nice and smooth, so we had a wide variety of uses on the trail.

We had roller bladers, you know skateboarders along with the bicycles and hikers.

But as the years went by the trail condition became much worse so it's no longer a usable trail for roller bladers or skateboarders.

It's pretty rough.

A lot of that asphalt has been eaten away so that you see just a lot of the pebble material that the asphalt was laid down with.

A lot of cracks have developed.

We have done work over the years with doing patching, trying to seal crack it or crack seal it.

Just trying to keep it up so that it's at least usable for walkers and bikers.

But what will happen hopefully next spring, the construction on redoing the stretch, the two and a half mile stretch from the park office following the roadway up to the corner at Trails Edge General store and cafe.

The trail will be totally milled down the current surface.

The trail has to be made a little wider cuz it was built at a time when we didn't have that width standard and then the trail crossings will also be AD accessible.

(gentle music) Our visitorship from the Twin Cities area has been rising every year cuz they're discovering what a nice place we've got down here.

It's not just open grass and nothing else.

We've got trees, we've got lakes, we've got trails.

Lake Shetek is the largest lake in southwest Minnesota and we get a lot of people that come here just to recreate.

So you're able to do a wide variety of fishing, Northern, walleye, catfish, the sunfish bluegills that kind of thing in the lake.

They're able to water ski and do all the water recreation on the lake.

And they find that it's such a nice paradise, I guess, not what they're expecting, but in a good way.

(gentle music) And the Friends of Casey Jones State Trail has been awesome.

They have been really promoting, talking to the state legislators, trying to get funding, trying to talk to landowners along the trail recently, get this a trail that you know can equal some of the other state trails in distance and landscape.

- [Deb] Community.

Every community has something to offer.

Every mile of trail in the state of Minnesota has a story to tell.

It can actually bring tourist dollars, it can have an economic impact.

We have unique tourism in Pipestone, we are one of the only two cement water towers in the state of Minnesota and then we have a historic downtown, we have a Pipestone National monument.

So tourism really supports Pipestone, supports Southwest Minnesota.

We are bordered by the states of Iowa and South Dakota.

And that just gives us, there's an enormous, enormous potential to connect with those different states.

One good thing that we've learned from the pandemic is more people wanna be outside and we wanna create that safe haven for them to be there.

We have a lot to offer here.

We might not have a lot of trees.

I know I've heard comments that well all it's just prairie out there, there's nothing to see but there he is.

The rolling hills, the grass, the tall grass prairie, it's beautiful.

Wild flowers, just the wide open space, freedom.

(gentle music)