(birds chirping) (birds chirping continues) (birds chirping continues) (majestic music) - To see the beauty that we have, to experiencing cliff sides and caves alongside the trail, or just that like solitude of being able to pedal or walk or run or roll for miles on end without a care in the world, you know, it's a great experience.

- There's so much to explore here, it's pretty incredible.

- You have the largest two rivers in the country that converge here.

You have caves that just go on forever, show caves and public caves and private caves that are just scattered everywhere.

And then you have these great trails.

I always think of the Katy Trail as like Missouri's longest welcome mat.

You get away from the strip malls and the chain restaurants, you just get to like small town America where, I mean, some of these towns, it could still be 1950.

It's like frozen in time.

- It means community, and people coming from all over the United States, sometimes the world, to experience what I think is one of the most unique and beautiful Rail to Trail systems in the United States.

- I live about a mile from the trail.

We walk it every day.

I meet people from all over the world.

It's just amazing what they think of when they come through this area and these small towns and the rivers and the view.

And it's a great way to promote Missouri.

- Populations moving for centuries now, whether or not it was Native Americans, whether it was the Spanish or the French, the in-migration of Germans and Irish and Italians, The Trail State to me is the movement of those people through Missouri.

Oftentimes those trails end here in Missouri and you stay for generations, and sometimes it's part of a much broader story.

(birds chirping) (gentle music) (birds chirping continues) (peaceful twangy music) Missouri, we're a crossroads.

The American story plays out here in large measure.

The rivers, the westward expansion, the railroads, the Civil War, the crux of it is all here.

It's in Missouri.

(peaceful twangy music continues) Most of the travel westward in the colonial period in the years prior to statehood and immediately after were along the Missouri River headed west.

Folks would travel by river as far west as they could and then join the Overland Travel from there.

The rivers established the location for Missouri towns.

The railroads determined its growth.

By the 1890s, during this really frenetic period of railroad construction in Missouri, small towns, their fortunes rise and fall on their ability to attract a railroad.

What a railroad means to a small town in Missouri is, one, population growth.

Second is economic development.

And then the third is intangible.

It's a sense of identity.

I mean, we're a railroad town, we're a Katy town, we're a Rock Island town, a Missouri Pacific town.

Those communities that were able to take advantage of that, they thrived and they grew.

- A lot of St.

Louis-based fortunes came from the railroads.

They took both sides of the river.

The south side where Washington and Hermann are by the Union Pacific, that left the north side of the river kind of abandoned.

There were no bridges across the river back in those times.

There was no way to trade from either side of the river to the other, and that's what brought the Katy on the scene.

- And so you have, by the turn of the 20th century, these trains heading eastward across the country that are carrying lumber and minerals and cotton and livestock.

And then those same trains are coming back west carrying newspapers and manufactured goods and Budweiser beer.

By the 1880s and 1890s, most of the construction in the state are these smaller feeder lines.

So really the 1880s and 1890s, that's the golden age for Missouri railroading, of which the Katy and then later the Rock Island is part of that story.

(old timey music) - The Katy Railroad was always based in Texas.

They had a lot of beautiful, mission-style depots along their tracks, but they were latecomers to the game.

They didn't have first mover advantage.

They were trying to come in after the big railroads and pick up these routes that were not as lucrative.

- [Joel] Jay Gould, one of the most infamous robber barons of the Gilded Age, actually is in control of the Katy for a time.

And the Katy's a great example of Gould's approach to railroading.

Gould, by the turn of the 20th century, controlled every railroad of any significance in Missouri, what they call his southwestern system.

And that was anchored by the Missouri Pacific.

- [Dan] Today's Katy Trail has 26 trailheads between Clinton, Missouri and St.

Charles.

Most of those trailheads are located in what were formerly railroad stops.

- The depots for those little towns, those were more than just a place to put freight or to buy your ticket.

Those became community centers, almost cathedrals, and their meaning for Missouri towns went far beyond just a place where the where the train stopped.

- That was the source.

That was what spawned all kinds of activity in the area.

That was what contributed to this land rush mentality that happened.

Everybody wanted to build at those railroad stops.

It was a base, a core for the local community's economy.

- And so for a town, and Missouri, again, is at the crossroads of this, for a smaller town, the railroads really become life and death.

(vehicle swooshes softly) (birds chirping) - Today's Katy Railroad that we know, Katy Trail, is from Clinton to St.

Charles.

And that was a route that took a while to build.

They had to build a bridge across the Missouri River in Boonville to get from the south side of the river to the north side.

And then they inched their way towards St.

Louis without any other river crossings.

That one big bridge that's still standing there today got them across the river and then it was pretty smooth and flat terrain, which was all good until it rained a lot.

And that flat terrain flooded and that was a problem.

And that was one of the reasons that led to the demise of the Katy.

- For the railroads, the 1940s, 1950s should have been a time of tremendous profitability.

Passenger trains in particular had become streamlined using aluminum, a much faster, much more luxurious form of travel.

But at the time when railroads are really hitting their stride, so to speak, they just can't overcome the Interstate Highway System and automobiles.

As convenient as train travel is, it's much more convenient just to hop in the car.

By the 1960s, most of the railroads began to phase out their passenger service.

- [Dan] This is what gave farmers a reason to come to town.

This is what brought goods to the general stores along the route.

And when that railroad went away, they not only lost the economic benefits, they lost their identity.

- [Joel] And for small towns in Missouri, it's the switch from coal to diesel power that spells the end of their local necessity.

They no longer serve a useful purpose to the railroad.

- The Katy opened up in 1896, and it shut down in 1986.

It had a 90-year run, some pretty good years, and then some mediocre years, and then some really, really bad years that finally contributed to 'em throwing in the towel and saying, "We want out of the railroad business, and you can find something to do with the right of way."

(birds chirping) (upbeat music) When I met Ted Jones in 1978 and went to work for Edward Jones, we shared a common love of the Missouri countryside.

In 1986, Ted decided that he was gonna bring this corridor that was the Katy Railroad back to life as the Katy Trail.

- It was a very unlikely idea, unheard of, misunderstood.

He really had to change a lot of people's minds and a lot of people's narratives about it.

- Once Ted introduced us to the Katy Trail, it was really the first time that I became familiar with the Missouri River and rethought history, rethought literature, rethought what it meant to be a Missourian.

(upbeat music continues) - [Dan] Ted imbued me 40 years ago with a lot of enthusiasm for the Katy Trail.

He put a big bet on it.

He put $2 million of his own money to purchase the Katy Trail right away and to make the initial improvements in it.

- It's not being built just to preserve a bicycle trail.

It's being constructed so that it maintains this rail bed for future generations and future needs.

- February 21st, 1990, there was a Supreme Court decision upheld rail banking.

At that moment, we were moving forward to develop the Katy Trail, and we couldn't have done that without the support of Ted and Pat Jones who really had the vision for what this trail could be.

- He wasn't interested in maximizing his earnings.

He really didn't care all that much about what his net worth was, which is why to him, when he had a chance to write a check for $2 million in 1986 for the Katy Trail, (snaps fingers) he did it like that.

- He invested in people and places and connection, and he invested his and Pat's own personal money in that as well.

They were lovers of Missouri.

(vehicle swooshing softly) (birds chirping) - Ted spent a lot of time in the Capitol, you know, lobbying Governor John Ashcroft at the time, saw the potential, saw this and supported the idea.

So once the Supreme Court decision was finalized and there was a go, the state put a crew together, developed the first section of trail, which was from Rocheport down to Huntsdale.

And on April 28th, 1990, it's about three months, we opened the first section in Rocheport on a very cold spring day.

I had the privilege of a young state park employee.

I drove him down the trail in a golf cart to the ribbon cutting ceremony.

(gentle country music) - He came up with this whole Katy Trail idea in 1985.

He'd fought cancer about 15 or 20 years before, the cancer came back.

So during the entire battle to create the Katy Trail, Ted was also battling with cancer.

The trail opened in April of 1990.

Ted passed away in October of 1990.

So he spent five years working on this project, got to see it open, then passed away shortly after.

(gentle country music continues) Connection of people, I mean, that meant a lot to Ted.

He wanted folks from the city to be able to come to the country, and he wanted to give those that didn't know the Missouri countryside a way to see it.

And so he said, "If people can ride this trail and they can get next to these small communities and the people that live in them, they're going to understand how we need to protect what we have."

And the Katy Trail offered all of these things, including a way for people to see the best of Missouri.

(exciting music) Ted's wife, Pat, was the first female graduate of the University of Missouri in the School of Agriculture.

- [David] She was kind of the mother of the Katy Trail and came out to our bike rides and had a real influence on the trail, not only from funding it, also just being out, the tram tours we do for seniors, all that came out of discussions with Pat.

- [Penny] We talked about the Katy Trail and why she and Ted poured so much energy into it.

And she said, "Well, that was Ted's thing.

That was Teddy's thing."

He had been up to Wisconsin, I believe it is, and seen the effect of a Rails to Trails project there.

He literally rode a bike along this Rails to Trails, and he thought it was extraordinary.

And he knew that the Katy Trail here in Missouri, the MKT Railroad had been abandoned, and there was this fallow trail that nobody was doing anything with.

And he was a visionary.

He instantly saw something that no one else could see.

(soft gentle music) - [Dan] Ted passed away when he was in his early 60s.

Pat lived another 30 years, and she continued with all of the same conservation interests, environmental interests, support of the Katy Trail that Ted had.

Ted was the prime mover in the Katy Trail, but when he passed the baton onto Pat, she picked it up and ran hard with it for the next 30 years.

(gentle music fades) (people chattering) (folk music) (people chattering) (audience applauds) - How many of you have been here to Treloar before?

Okay, so we've got some newbies.

That's what it's all about, is try to get people out here and have folks go back to wherever you live and tell people they've got to come to visit the Katy Trail.

That is what Ted Jones would love to have happening, so I'm officially designating each of you as Katy Trail ambassadors.

So get somebody, each one tell one, and get people out here to visit us.

(audience applauds) - Ted's vision for the Katy Trail is that it was going to bring new vitality and opportunity to the countryside.

He loved Missouri.

He wanted Missouri to be the best it could be.

He saw this opportunity to bring people from around the world to ride on a trail that would become the longest rail trail in the United States as something that would differentiate Missouri from everyone else.

(upbeat country music) - They're absolutely tailor-made for that because the grade has to be so shallow for a railroad that even an old guy like me, I mean, it's not that much of a stretch.

It's a little bit, you know, as you head up river, it's a little bit of an incline, but it's very, very smooth.

And so what are we going to do with these old road beds from the railroad?

Wow, bike trail, to me, that makes perfect sense.

(gentle music) - What can Missouri be best at?

What's the lift to make Missouri one of the top destinations?

We have the roads, we have the terrain.

Anything north of the middle of Missouri is fairly flat.

Anything south is hilly and the Ozarks and it's beautiful mountains, and so we don't need to build something.

It's already here.

- [Dan] We don't have the sea coast, we don't have beaches, but we've got a beautiful expanse of countryside along the Missouri River on the Katy Trail, and that's what Ted wanted.

He wanted to give these small communities another chance.

They lost their entire identity, and in a lot of cases, their entire means of support when the railroad shut down, and he wanted to see them have a way to come back.

(uplifting music) - Well, I grew up in a little railroad town in Rock Island, railroad town, and I was the kid who would jump the boxcars and ride to the next town and put pennies on the rail, and it was a railroad community.

The depot was still active.

I'd go with my dad to the depot, and we'd get freight off the railroad.

And then the railroad died, the railroad quit, it quit running, and the town just started to shrivel up and die.

And then there is that hope now that railroad, in a sense, will be resurrected yet for another purpose, but as a trail.

But once again, we'll have visitors who are coming through town, and we'll have that rebirth.

It may be a trail instead of a train, but it's a rebirth nonetheless, and it'll bring some new vitality into the community.

- [Dan] People come from around the world to ride the Katy Trail and to see these small communities and appreciate the history of the area and appreciate that they're riding next to the longest river in America.

(birds chirping) (birds chirping continues) (peaceful music) - Sometimes people ask what the early days of the Katy Trail were like, and I'll tell you, it was a honeymoon period straight out of the gates.

(children giggling) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (people chattering softly) People gravitated, traveled from hours away to ride their bike, explore the trail, see the river.

Even when things would happen such as high water years, 1995, for example, almost 80% of the trail was underwater, and yet people's hunger for information was still so high, this little guidebook I wrote, it just kept moving out the door.

People were real excited to get out here and explore.

(serene music) (serene music continues) (serene music fades) (birds chirping) - Rails to Trails, you know, with their low grade, low to no grade, they're wide, they're just really, they're there for everybody.

I do all types of cycling, and I love getting on the Katy, you know?

And just be in my own head pedaling along and not having to worry about what's in front of me because it's just like stretch of trees and trail.

It's an amazing resource.

(twangy music) - The most unique thing about it is the state park.

It's 100 foot wide and 240 miles long.

So it's fairly significant with 185 miles right along the Missouri River.

It's very unique.

(twangy music continues) - [Joel] I think what all Americans are looking for is an authentic sense of place.

These towns along the Katy, they are an authentic sense of place.

Each of them have their stories, their colorful characters, their folklore.

Without those connections that the trail provides, much of that remains isolated and unknown and unknowable.

But just like when the railroads arrived, once the trail arrives, it exposes that, and these little communities are able to showcase what makes them special.

- It seems like such a simple pleasure riding through the Missouri countryside, past a cornfield, through an old railroad community, under a river bluff, past falling down barns, past cattle herds.

People don't get to do that.

People don't get to see that sort of life in today's world.

I think that's what it's all about, is bringing people to see Missouri.

(twangy music fades) - Nobody's going to want to go 200 and something miles with no stops.

You want to see authentic communities.

You want to go to that local bike shop, you buy a t-shirt, you buy some stickers, you want to go to the brew pub.

A lot of times, frankly, outdoor recreation and these longer trails and rides, that can be the best part of the trip.

(exciting music) - When you create spaces that foster activity, people are more active.

They're a vital resource for folks to recreate and also for transportation too.

In the places where they are, you know, we see economic development.

One of the things my family loves to do is we love to come out here and listen to music.

We like to camp out here.

Any long ride that I do in and around this area, I'm stopping into Cooper's to refill my water bottle.

- The longer I was down here, I realized that people need a place, you know?

They need a place where they can stop and rest, sleep, whatever.

That to me was the driving force behind putting the new building in here and just having a place where people feel welcome.

♪ Life is good, yeah ♪ Life is good, life is good, yeah ♪ - There seems to be a brotherhood and a sisterhood to this of people that take advantage of the Katy Trail, that love the trail, that know every, you know, mile of it and know the spots around there, and those are gathering places.

♪ Yeah, in my darkest times ♪ You've got me feeling light - You can tell people about how great nature is, but outdoor recreation is a vehicle.

It gives people structure for what they're going to do because not everybody wants to just take a nature walk.

Some people want structure.

They want to complete an X-mile run or an X-mile bike ride or a 340-mile paddle.

So outdoor recreation is that form that should help you get outside and know what you're going to do when you get there.

- I've met people from Germany and Sweden on the Katy Trail.

You stop at a trailhead and they pull up, and like everyone, you just strike up a conversation.

And you don't think about it as an economic driver, but, you know, at the end of the day, it is.

They're spending their money.

They could go to The Bahamas, they could go to California, whatever.

They come to Missouri.

(twangy music) - We just finished Big BAM.

It's a fully supported camping and hotel option ride on the Katy Trail across from Clinton, Missouri to St.

Charles over six days.

And it's complete with like shower trucks and baggage transfer.

We got masseuse in camp.

We had repair depot, the mobile bike shop.

And then, of course, there's hotel options and then live music each night and with a little free drink token and things like that.

It's not just the ride, what I'm riding, it's what am I going to see, and what am I going to do, what am I going to smell, what am I going to eat, and it's also who am I going to meet?

(twangy music continues) (twangy music fades) (gentle music) - As we speak right now, the Dutzow area, I mean, they're doing the new Dutzow landing.

There's going to be a bike shop, a new restaurant.

And I just think them type of thing brings in not only our local people but it does bring in tourists.

You know, we want that tourism.

We want people to embrace and to support our local small town.

- That was our goal was to really make it into a destination where people could really appreciate, and it really is part of the community here, which we were really striving for.

And we love the Katy Trail, we love the outdoors, and this just made sense for us to capture Dutzow Landing the way we want it to be captured, so.

- Every new bridge between Boonville and St.

Louis has been built since the trail opened, it has a bike lane on it now.

And so there's all these connections from communities on both sides of the river.

People see the economic benefit of the trail, and those are great connections for those communities.

- As we look at trail systems across the region, it's really providing access to all communities.

I think that the Katy Trail is amazing.

I think the Rock Island Trail is also amazing, and I think the Brickline Greenway when it's complete will have the same impact to our region.

(chill music) (chill music continues) - St.

Louis, you drive around, you see boats on cars, you see mountain bikes.

We've got trail running groups.

We've got ultra marathons in town.

We have easy access to unbelievable outdoor recreation assets in this city.

I think the Katy does this really well, acting as a corridor for interaction between an urban environment and the rural environment.

- If you just look at St.

Louis as a region, we're a very commuter region, but I think the more we are out in the community, the more we have these conversations, the more that we realize how important it is to bring people back to our region.

I think we'll see that those are the things that attract people back to St.

Louis is having those accessibility, that walkability, and that bikeability in our region.

- Don't you love it?

Don't you love it?

You don't need a bike.

You don't need fancy Brooks running shoes.

You don't need anything except yourself.

I think that everybody, especially people who spend a lot of time indoors or looking at screens, should just say, "You know what?

For 20 minutes, for 15 minutes, I'm going to go find a greenway, and I'm going to walk on it."

And I promise you, it will become like one of your favorite things to do.

(bikers chattering) (chill music) - You've got creek crossings, you've got rocky outcroppings, you've got all types of interesting topography, and, you know, you're 35 minutes from the Arch.

- The aspiration of The Trail State, and that it's a modern aspiration is not something that's sort of etched in the past.

And when you think about the Brickline Greenway and the nodes of excellence that it connects, this leg of the Brickline Greenway represents an area of our city that has been actively disinvested in over the years.

- The Brickline Greenway, it'll be a 10-mile greenway system that connects Forest Park from the west down to the Arch grounds on the east, and then Fairground Park on the north down to Tower Grove on the south.

So what makes it unique is it's going to connect 14 neighborhoods.

It's also going to provide those neighborhoods with accessibility.

It's going to improve health outcomes, make living conditions for the residents in those communities.

And so overall, it's a very unique project because it's us connecting our city.

- It's an unaddressed market.

Going back to Ted's vision, look for places that are undernourished, unaddressed, and find ways to be competitively differentiated there.

(chill music) (chill music continues) (popcorn popping) (people chattering) (country music) (people chattering) - Hey yo!

(country music continues) (people chattering) - The trail coming back in has brought new life into a lot of the communities, and we've seen, you know, special events and festivals like the Hartsburg Pumpkin Festival.

Tourism's the second largest industry in Missouri after agriculture.

The locals get a benefit of a business.

(gentle music) - [Joel] To be a part of the Katy Trail, there is economic development, but it's that sense of identity again, that a lot of these communities hadn't really enjoyed that since the trains went away in the 1960s.

And so once again, they're part of something much bigger, something much more vibrant and important than they had been in a while.

(gentle music continues) - One of the best things about the Katy Trail is that there are these educational trailheads that were some of the first things that were put into place when the Missouri State Parks was taking over the effort.

They did all of the interviews and went into archives and really pulled meaningful historic things forward for the trailheads.

And so I love stopping in these communities, learning what each of these towns is about.

This would be on the Katy Trail, and it's what we do now with the Rock Island.

And certainly as we continue our education about the communities left behind in the Brickline area, it's like, I just want to learn about the areas and meet the people that are there.

That's my favorite way to experience it.

- With these local trailheads, there's almost no change to the town outside if you're going to have increased visitors who are there wanting to spend money at your local establishments.

One thing that we found with the Katy Trail specific economic study is that it supported 300 jobs, which resulted in $13 million of wage income.

It generated $22.6 million in the state's GDP.

And in terms of Missouri businesses, the Katy Trail alone generated $39 million in sales.

- We see people of all ages, nine-year-olds, 90-year-olds, all riding the Katy Trail.

So the investment is not just in the communities, it's in the people, the state of Missouri, and the United States that can enjoy something like this.

What kind of recreation do you get that sort of age range and ability levels in?

We are 100% linked to the Katy Trail.

We are a community, restaurant, and bike shop, but it's the Katy Trail in that experience.

We do full tours on the Katy Trail.

We shuttle, we do bike rentals, we do luggage transfers.

So that's a major part of our business that if it were gone tomorrow, we would be gone tomorrow.

It would absolutely put us out of business.

- This trail is awesome, and the people you meet, I mean, they're happy, they're out in nature.

And I love the reaction for people that stop here that are not familiar with Cooper's.

And they'll be like, "Oh my God, this wasn't on my map."

- People have bought homes in Windsor because of the trails.

The Katy-Rock Junction was bought by folks that were staying here at the cabins and enjoying this area and ended up buying and now building their own home here.

So it benefits us greatly.

(gentle music) - I can't think there's been a better return on investment for the state of Missouri.

These folks come to town on their high dollar bikes.

They're staying in these bed and breakfasts.

They're visiting local wineries.

They're eating at all the great little cafes and things like that.

They're here to explore and enjoy and support the best that Missouri has to offer.

And it's been a fantastic catalyst for rural Missouri.

- These are people that have been to tourist spots, the Cotswolds of England and Tuscany and to Machu Picchu and been to every place you could imagine.

And they want to come to Missouri to ride the Katy Trail.

And it's remarkable.

I've met people from some of the fanciest clubs in America that say, "One of the best times I ever had was the five days I spent riding across Missouri on the Katy Trail."

(gentle music continues) (gentle music fades) (birds chirping) (leaves rustling) The Katy Trail runs from Clinton in Western Missouri up to Boonville, and it crosses the Missouri River at Boonville, and then tracks right along the Missouri River into St.

Charles, 237 miles of rural beauty.

(bright music) Today, there's another opportunity that's on the horizon that the Katy has really made possible.

There's another abandoned railroad right of way that's being worked on now called the Rock Island.

The Rock Island comes out of Kansas City, and it heads south of the Missouri River, and it ends up close to Washington, Missouri.

(bright music continues) The opportunity is to complete 140 miles of the Rock Island that's waiting to be built.

- We have this Rock Island and the Katy Trail that link at both ends, and we can create a 450-mile trail loop, and that's like anything else in the world.

In the world, there'll be nothing else like it.

And the cool thing, it's all within the boundary of the state of Missouri.

So we don't share that honor with anybody else.

We could be selfish and say, "Hey, we have the heart of Missouri Trail Loop," and it's going to be absolutely incredible.

(bright music) - And even though it's close to the Katy Trail, the terrain, the topography is completely different.

It's Ozark terrain.

(bright music continues) The Rock Island has amazing tunnels that were built in 1900 and are still in great condition.

And that trail, the Rock Island, even though it's not completed, it's been dedicated as a Missouri State Park.

(bright music continues) - A few years ago, the governor in his State of the State asked for $69.3 million to build the Rock Island Trail.

There were a few people in the House that tried to derail that, and we managed to overcome their objections and the majority of the members in the House supported the funding to build the Rock Island Trail.

Unfortunately, it got to the Senate and one of the senators blocked the funding, and the funding was lost.

- We had the money.

We had $70 million to do it in 2021.

The governor was for it, everybody was for it, fix all those bridges, put lights in those tunnels, build out the whole trail, and we just punted it.

(intriguing music) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) - Missourians are very industrious, hardworking people.

They're not sitting around waiting for the state or anyone else to tell them when to start or stop living.

This is a chance when we can not only breed some new life into these small towns, but we can actually unify Missouri in a unique way.

By increasing this tourism, we're creating a whole new industry for Missourians that's based off of hard work, their business abilities, but then also our main feature is the beauty of Missouri itself.

(bright music) (bright music fades) - The challenge today with the Rock Island Trail is getting the funding to complete it.

But the good news is that the communities on the Rock Island Trail are building out one- and two- and three-mile stretches that run through their towns.

Once those little chunks get completed, there's going to be a real urge and a real demand to connect them.

- Because of the success of the Katy, those communities have made that commitment on the Rock Island to begin the development when the state couldn't.

- [Brett] Here we are in Missouri, and we've been blessed with the Katy Trail.

And now there's talk of this Rock Island Trail.

The question is, "Can lightning strike twice in Missouri?"

Yes, it can and it will.

The Rock Island Trail will be an absolute gamechanger for the state of Missouri.

This is not the Katy Trail 2.0.

When these two trails combine, Missouri will be home to two of the top five longest Rails to Trails projects in the country.

(gentle music) - We are reliant on these local communities taking part in this project with us.

We can't pay for everything we want, and we certainly can't pay for the personnel for everything that we want.

So you have to make hard choices, and that's why it's so important to partner with these communities and say, "Here's how we can help you.

If you'll just jump in with us, we can go through this process together."

- [Bruce] Little by little, we're taking baby steps and the trail is being built.

Every single day, there's a few feet of trail being built.

- If you build it, they will come.

Right now, what the Rock Island needs, in addition to being finished, and having more public funds into it, is for the community to embrace and for businesses to come to it, and I believe they absolutely will.

What we advocated for and what we argued in Jefferson City, the state capital, was that, yes, this is a lot of taxpayer dollars that are being invested into this community, but unlike most taxpayer dollars, you will absolutely get a return on your investment a hundredfold.

(gentle music continues) - State Parks has not been able to come up with the budget to build this trail.

A lot of what is being done right now is being independently funded.

- The Rock Island Trail is a great example of what we could do with a concerted effort moving forward.

Right now, a lot of the towns themselves are taking it upon themselves to build off those couple miles of Rock Island around their towns, but there's going to be big gaps between towns where there is no trail, where it's going to need some sort of other assistance to get built.

- Nobody will say it hasn't been a struggle.

We've had wonderful support from Rails to Trails Conservancy, the national group, and some in our state are very, very behind it.

But, yeah, things have happened.

There was one town that had a grant.

It got pulled back.

But now they're moving ahead and they're building trail.

I think you just have to persevere, and that's what we've done.

- One beautiful thing about these setbacks that confront the Rock Island Trail, when money appropriation seemed to be on the table and then was diverted and taken away, the fact that these communities continue their grassroots effort to define and improve their stretches of the future Rock Island Trail, that is a thing that really is a really emotional experience for me every time we have one of these ribbon cuttings or some event on the Rock Island Trail that you see individuals coming together to say, "We hope it happens.

We hope like heck it happens."

It's a lot of hard work.

It's physical labor for them.

It's creativity with the world's largest cowbell and the largest horseshoe and all of the things that they're coming up with to identify themselves and to connect within their towns and with each other.

It's really moving that these individual communities still believe that they can prevail on all of this.

- Me and Wendy was sitting around one night like, "You know, we just need to do something for our town, you know, something cool, whatever.

Let's just build a cowbell," because ironically, we had a half a dozen cowbells sitting in our house from collecting antiques and raising cattle and stuff.

And I was like, "I can make one."

And then we looked it up and the largest one's in Germany, and it's half that size.

I just took one, kind of scaled it out, a little small one and said, "Here, you know, this is our dimensions-ish."

And we just, yeah, started building a cowbell.

There's not a day goes by that people don't stop in there.

And our goal was just to get something, a novelty to get people to drive through town.

And when they drive, they stop and eat, whatever, and you can't tell me it doesn't help.

We'll never make Belle a mega, but if we can stop the decline and, you know, help the quality of living for the people that are here, make it a little nicer, a little cleaner, whatever, we won.

And that's all we're trying to do.

It's not just a trail.

This is a piece of that big puzzle.

And I said, "We're going to have to step up today for the check tomorrow."

It'll come to pass.

They can slow it down.

They can't stop it.

(peaceful music) - [Daniel] If we can actually complete the Rock Island Trail, you'll be able to leave from one side of the state and then come back down through the Rock Island path, see a completely different side of the state, and visit all different towns.

The longer people are on the trail, the more money they're spending.

And also, outside state visitors like the longer trail experience as well.

So we're actually bringing in money from outside of Missouri and enriching our local communities.

- Going back to the '90s, there were some small towns that didn't necessarily want the Katy Trail.

Now they would obviously never want to give it up, and some of these towns on the Rock Island Trail can look at these towns on the Katy and say like, "That's what we want."

- [Dan] They know there's opportunity there, and they want to have a way to welcome visitors to their town for a reason that doesn't exist now.

And if you're along a beautiful Ozark stretch of 140 miles of trails over rivers and through tunnels, you're going to get people to come to your town.

(peaceful music continues) - With the Rock Island, I think it's a really interesting economic engine because it's almost human power.

You know, we do have to build bridges where they're falling down.

We do have to pave the roads and everything like that.

And we need these partnerships with local communities for sure.

But once that's set up, the automatic economic engine that just kind of takes off from people pedaling it is going to be something that I don't think anyone's going to look back on regretfully.

- [T. Christopher] Getting these underserved areas reactivated and leveraging the infrastructure project to do that is a great way to do economic development.

And it's shown successfully across the country from Atlanta Beltline to the Indianapolis Cultural Trail that if you put in successful infrastructure projects, it's a catalyst for redevelopment.

- And when legislators see that and they realize, wow, this is a whole different form of commerce, and it brings people to the state, then maybe they'll start, you know, having second thoughts about the way they treat that program.

(peaceful music fades) - [Dan] We really like to say where trails are built, hope follows.

(contemplative music) The railroad was great while it lasted, but its days done, and to be able to repurpose that into something that would be beneficial for the community is an opportunity that I hope we take advantage of.

- A lot of these towns have got a mile or more of Old Rock Island Trail.

Let's build it.

Let's get these kids off the streets, off the shoulders, off the sidewalks.

Let's give them a way to get to school on their bike.

I mean, I don't know what more Norman Rockwell small town America thing you could do for a kid than to get them on that bike and give them a safe way to get to school.

- We need policymakers, we need changemakers to understand that, yes, outdoor recreation is a heck of a lot of fun.

We never want outdoor recreation to not be fun, but it goes well beyond that.

You know, it goes into community health and wellness, civic pride, economic development.

There's just so many things as an industry outdoor recreation encompasses, and we need people in higher levels to understand that and really to embrace it.

- We had the benefit of Ted and Pat Jones on the Katy, unless somebody like that steps up, then it will be done and led by the communities until state or federal funding is available.

(gentle music) - We try very hard to support the small businesses along the trail and create examples of what local communities can do, whether it's by tree plantings, trailhead beautification, public art displays, events, music, festivals.

These things are all possibilities, and they are happening along the Katy, and they absolutely can happen along the Rock Island.

(birds chirping) - So glad we're here today.

We have a good representation of the state, but the heartbeat right now is right here.

It's so essential for us to have our 93 state parks.

- Rick said, "A mile at a time," but he also very importantly said last year we did all these ribbon cuttings and ground drapings.

We've got five miles here.

We've got a mile in Gerald.

We've got Cole Camp, Versailles, Eldon all breaking ground.

- This didn't happen all by itself.

It takes a lot of people coming together to do some really great things and you are, we are doing everything we can.

We just keep moving forwards.

We never stop.

Don't run out of breath.

Just keep working at this.

So this politician is going to sit down.

Thank you all.

(audience applauds) - Really, you're talking about very small buy-in versus what we know the proven economic impact is going to be.

Missouri State Parks is one of the few parks in the nation where you can go and it's free there.

You don't have to pay to park, you don't have to pay to get in.

People don't realize most states you have to pay to get into your own parks.

So you've got people who are looking after the history, looking after the natural environment.

They're thinking about recreation and the wellbeing of the people, places where people can take their families to have a good time.

It's a heck of a value for half of one-tenth of 1%.

- It's the pride as much as anything, I think, and the determination that we will make the Rock Island work.

- [Red Shirt] One, two, three.

(audience applauds) - Once we complete the Rock Island Trail and we have the Loop, we will undoubtedly be The Trail State.

(upbeat music) - [Speaker] The trails not only connect the land, but they connect the people, and it's such a rich culture and history here.

I love being able to explore it as a family.

(upbeat music continues) - [Brad] The idea that you can hop on the eastern end or the western end of the state and go entirely across in a number of days is remarkable.

It's a recreational superhighway.

- Immersing ourselves in nature on a trail like this is probably better than any prescription you could get from a doctor.

I hope that people take the opportunity to get out there.

- It's just good for you.

It's good for your soul.

- [Mike] Naturally, we crave that, right?

We crave that connection with nature, the Katy Trail and trails like it.

You can roll, you can wheel, you can pedal, you can walk.

It's accessible for everyone.

- [T. Christopher] Trails are opportunity to bring people together.

It's opportunity to connect communities.

It's an opportunity to help us with our mental and physical wellbeing.

Trails are very important to the overall fabric of our communities.

- [Joel] I think unequivocally, the Katy has a place certainly in our past and in our future.

- Missouri is a leader nationally in trails.

We've got something that has been pretty well perfected for the last 40 years, and that's the Katy Trail.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) - [Penny] At a moment of time where there are misunderstandings, misconceptions, polarity between metro and rural, between different versions of people's politics, being a place where you can draw people together in a place like the Katy Trail or Brickline Greenway, where people are rubbing elbows with each other, exchanging with one another, understanding the things that we have in common, our families, the fact that we want to spend time outside in fresh air, we want to get some exercise, we want to enjoy the richness of our lives.

When we do that together as human beings, I think it bridges that gap between, you know, what separates us to come across that bridge to what unites us.

(uplifting music) (uplifting music softens) (birds chirping) (birds chirping continues) (birds chirping continues) ♪ They ask me why I stay here in Missouri ♪ ♪ When the music runs along the Tennessee ♪ ♪ And I don't intend to cross that 'ole Red River ♪ ♪ When this muddy water feels like home to me ♪ ♪ Great Falls, Bismarck, Omaha, Rocheport ♪ ♪ Kansas City, Sioux City ♪ Golden Eagle River Ferry ♪ White Cloud boat ride ♪ Floatin' down the riverside ♪ Ozark Mountain oak trees ♪ Sittin' nowhere near the sea ♪ 'Yoda buggy loaded down ♪ Trucker hats, downtown ♪ Start here, end there ♪ Seven states, now where?

♪ Missouri River Run ♪ Missouri River Run ♪ Stop in, say hi ♪ Midwest goodbye ♪ Missouri River Run - [Singer] Y'all come back now.

Toodle-oo.