The Casey Jones State Trail is a multi-use recreational

rail trail A rail trail or railway walk is a shared-use path on a Right of way#Rail right of way, railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed but may also share the rail corr ...

in southwestern

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

, USA. Although it was one of the first Minnesota state trails to be established, it remains incomplete as three discontinuous sections. The trail is managed by the

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, or Minnesota DNR, is the agency of the U.S. state of Minnesota charged with conserving and managing the state's natural resources. The agency maintains areas such as state parks, state forests, rec ...

. It traverses the rolling morainal landscape of the

Coteau des Prairies The Coteau des Prairies is a plateau approximately 200 miles in length and 100 miles in width (320 by 160 km), rising from the prairie flatlands in eastern South Dakota, southwestern Minnesota, and northwestern Iowa in the United States. ...

, passing cropland interspersed with wooded ravines, remnant tallgrass prairie, and wetlands. The trail is named after railroad engineer

Casey Jones John Luther "Casey" Jones (March 14, 1864 – April 30, 1900) was an American railroader who was killed when his passenger train collided with a stalled freight train in Vaughan, Mississippi. Jones was a locomotive engineer for the Illinois Cen ...

, who famously sacrificed his life to lessen the severity of a 1900 train crash in Mississippi. Jones had no connections to Minnesota; the trail was named for him as it was the first abandoned railroad grade acquired by the state. The railroad was key to bringing settlers to the area in the late 19th century and for shipping their agricultural products to market.

Description

The Casey Jones State Trail is currently limited to three separate sections. The first section runs from the city of Pipestone due east for to the Pipestone/

Murray Murray may refer to: Businesses * Murray (bicycle company), an American bicycle manufacturer * Murray Motor Car Company, an American car manufacturer * Murrays, an Australian bus company * Murray International Trust, a Scottish investment trus ...

county line. After a gap the trail resumes for a section leading into the town of Lake Wilson. These two sections have a natural surface. The third portion is a paved loop between End-O-Line Railroad Park & Museum in

Currie Currie is a village and suburb on the outskirts of Edinburgh, Scotland, situated south west of the city centre. Formerly within the County of Midlothian, it now falls within the jurisdiction of the City of Edinburgh Council. It is situated be ...

and Lake Shetek State Park. The full plan for the trail is a route from

Split Rock Creek State Park Split Rock Creek State Park is a state park of Minnesota, USA, located in Ihlen, or just south of Pipestone. The Works Progress Administration built a dam in 1938 to create a lake, which provided an opportunity for water recreation in an area ...

to Pipestone to Lake Wilson to Slayton to Lake Shetek State Park to Walnut Grove. A spur would provide access to

Pipestone National Monument Pipestone National Monument is located in southwestern Minnesota, just north of the city of Pipestone, Minnesota. It is located along the highways of U.S. Route 75, Minnesota State Highway 23 and Minnesota State Highway 30. The quarries are cul ...

. The plan calls for parallel tracks, one paved and one natural-surfaced, to accommodate horseback riding and snowmobiling as well as biking, in-line skating, and cross-country skiing.

History

The Casey Jones State Trail was authorized in the late 1960s shortly after legislation was passed allowing for state trails in Minnesota. The original route was to follow the abandoned railroad grade and then sweep northeast through Slayton to Lake Shetek State Park. No further property was acquired, however, and only the section from Pipestone was developed, opening in the mid-1970s. In 1993 Murray County secured federal funds through the

Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA, ) is a United States federal law that posed a major change to transportation planning and policy, as the first U.S. federal legislation on the subject in the post-Interstate H ...

to build the paved loop from Currie to the state park, which was completed in 1996. The following year a local group secured a key segment leading into Lake Wilson, and that section was soon opened for hiking. The popularity of the paved loop helped renew public interest in the trail. The 2002

Minnesota Legislature The Minnesota Legislature is the bicameral legislature of the U.S. state of Minnesota consisting of two houses: the Senate and the House of Representatives. Senators are elected from 67 single-member districts. In order to account for decenn ...

officialized the loop as part of the state trail and authorized a extension to the main route. However a second bill to provide funding did not pass and a small appropriation was vetoed by the governor.

References

External links

Casey Jones State Trail
{{Minnesota hiking trails Minnesota state trails Protected areas of Murray County, Minnesota Protected areas of Pipestone County, Minnesota Rail trails in Minnesota 1970s establishments in Minnesota Protected areas established in the 1970s