By CHUCK OFFENBURGER

BOUTON, Iowa, Aug. 17, 2024 – I’ve been part of the bicycling scene in Iowa since 1983 when, as a Des Moines Register columnist, I was named co-host of the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) with John Karras.  So, consider my bias in what follows.

I’ve often said – and said again Saturday afternoon to a crowd of about 500 cyclists in this tiny town – that the best thing that’s happened in Iowa in the last 41 years, and maybe in my whole life, is the development of the state’s fantastic network of multi-purpose recreational trails.

I rank the importance of the build-out of our trails right up there with the proliferation of internet service in Iowa; the founding of the many Young Professionals organizations to inspire new leaders here, and of course the birth of Caitlin Clark.

We now have dozens of trails across rural Iowa, all over our cities, and in nearly every new housing development being built.  My best guess is they probably now total more than 5,000 miles.

Here they come, Bouton!

The trails provide us safe places for exercise and fun in a time when there is too much distracted driving on our roadways.  They give us more habitat for birds, animals and plant species.  And they can be powerful economic development tools, especially for small communities that have few other attractions.

Saturday was another big day for our trails system.

The Dallas County Conservation Board and the Raccoon River Valley Trail Association celebrated the completion and opening of a 9-mile stretch of concrete connecting two of Iowa’s best-known rec trails — the High Trestle Trail and the Raccoon River Valley Trail.  They are located 30 to 50 miles west and northwest of the Des Moines metro area.

Both are built on former railroad corridors, so they have lots of much-desired shade.  My estimate of the total cost to build both trails is about $30 million – covered by grants from federal, state and local governments with additional donations from businesses, foundations, families and individuals.

One of Iowa’s best trail developers has been Mike Wallace, who has just retired as Dallas County Conservation director. A rebuilt 113-year-old former railroad bridge, located between Bouton and Woodward and traversing Little Beaver Creek on the new portion of the High Trestle Trail, is being named after him.

The 89-mile RRVT, which opened in 1989 and has had at least three extensions since then, includes 14 towns in Dallas, Guthrie and Greene Counties.  It’s one of the longest paved trails in America and has an interior loop of 72 miles.  It connects into the Des Moines metro trail system where it meets the Clive Greenbelt Trail on the east side of Waukee.  Automated counts of people on the trail indicate about 350,000 people use the RRVT annually.

The HTT, which opened in 2011, before Saturday was 25 miles long and connected five towns in Dallas, Boone and Polk Counties.  It has one of the most popular trail features in the nation – the 140-foot-high “Art Bridge” constructed across the Des Moines River valley between the towns of Woodward and Madrid.  The bridge, with its steel superstructure, is built to recall the way coal mines were built when they served the area.  The HTT has more than 200,000 users each year.

Now, the HTT is officially 34 miles long, and has added the towns of Bouton and Perry.

The actual junction of the two major rec trails is the trailhead on the west side of the central business district in downtown Perry.

Arriving in Bouton from Perry, via the new trail that comes into the northwest corner of town.

It was a great idea to put Saturday’s celebration of the completion & opening of the trail connection in this town of Bouton, pop. 127 in a 2022 estimate.  Bicyclists rode in from both Perry on the west and Woodward on the east.

A half-dozen of us who spoke gave thanks for MVPs in the funding, engineering and building of the new connecting trail – including the Dallas County Conservation Board, the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, and the owners of private properties adjacent to the trail.

When the railroads abandon a railbed, as happened on the route of this trail, if the ownership is not taken over by some public entity, it reverts to adjacent landowners.  Several of those property owners in this case cooperated at different levels in establishing new ownership by the county conservation board.  Especially helpful was the VanKirk family, of Perry, which had purchased the rail right-of-way from their Progressive Foundry in the heart of town on east out of the community toward U.S. Highway 69.

Columnist and trails advocate preaching to the choir in happy little Bouton. (This photo by Von Ketelsen.)

In my remarks to the crowd, I even thanked the railroads “for building these routes 150 years ago, connecting our communities, establishing public transportation then and enabling commerce between our towns.  And thanks to the agencies, organizations and individuals who – once the importance of the railroad industry declined – had the vision, courage and determination to see what could be done on the railbeds.

“One thing that’s important for trail advocates like all of us to remember,” I continued, “is that our recreational trails today are now delivering more people to our Iowa small towns than the railroads ever did.”

Then I concluded by encouraging the people of Bouton.

“I know that for 90 years, your town was known for its annual ‘Sauerkraut Festival’,” I said. “Any town that could do that surely has the spirit and moxie to be a great trail town.  And you are still known now for the huge ‘Bouton Breakfasts’ you have on five Saturday mornings each year – in the spring and fall.  I can see those becoming weekly successes, if you can host them.

“People are coming, Bouton!  Fun people of all ages, people from all over everywhere, people who’ll spend more money right here than you can imagine.  Those people are coming, and the proof of that is what’s happened the past 41 years on recreational trails all over this state!”

Now, where are we building next?

Rich Voelker, of Des Moines, of Snyder & Associates Engineering, has engineered and helped plan several of Iowa’s best trails — including the High Trestle Trail and parts of the Raccoon River Valley Trail. He was another of Saturday’s speakers at the trail opening in Bouton. 

—

You can comment on this column below or write the columnist directly by email at chuck@offenburger.com.