Chase County trail closer to reality
After 13 years, cities may be linked
By Bobbi Mlynar
Friday, October 20, 2006
Volunteers in Chase County are moving closer to establishing a foot and bike trail that will link Cottonwood Falls and Strong City. If hopes are realized, the trail will extend on to the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve.
Preliminary construction planning has started on the project, which began in 1993 with the formation of the Community Connection Trail Coalition. Ruth Childs of Elmdale currently is chairman of the group.
In the ’90s, the trail plans included turning an old railroad bed into a hiking and biking trail that would have run between the towns on the east of Highway 177. Those plans did not materialize. A federal grant had to be turned down because the group could not raise matching funds.
However, other funds were received and the coalition worked with the city of Cottonwood Falls to restore the old bridge there, and improvements were made to Bates Grove Park in Cottonwood Falls and the William B. Strong Park, often called “Caboose Park” in Strong City.
“But the trail between towns was turned down then,” said Mike Schmidt of Strong City, a coalition member.
Pedestrian and bike traffic continued to use the highway and the shoulder and ditch that run alongside. The highway was the scene of a fatal accident Sept. 16, when James Fredrick Benzon was struck by a pickup truck as he walked from Strong City to his home in Cottonwood Falls.
The coalition had resurrected the trail concept about a year and a half ago, Schmidt said. The group held meetings for community members to give their opinions on what was needed for the trail. Surveys also were used by the group to gather opinions.
“We got the community input we felt we needed, and we started going after funding,” Schmidt said.
The right-of-way the group wanted to use was on land east of Highway 177 that belonged to the Kansas Department of Transportation. KDOT declined to participate because the land available was not large enough to accommodate the trail.
The reconfigured trail route runs on the west side of the highway.
“That way, children, pedestrians and bikers will not have to actually cross Highway 177 at any point,” Schmidt said.
The change from east to west created a need to acquire property west of the highway. The property, a 30-foot strip that runs approximately one-half mile, is owned by former Chase County resident Thomas Pinkston and amounts to about 1.68 acres.
The coalition had the land appraised, then made an offer to Pinkston. He declined the offer and made a counteroffer that the coalition could not accept.
“We could not afford that, and so we took the whole concept to the Chase County Commission to ask for their help in acquiring that right-of-way,” Schmidt said. “They agreed to pursue acquiring that 30-foot strip through eminent domain. This is not something that we did lightly...
“Nobody wanted to pursue this eminent domain,” he said. “We finally did decide, though, that the benefit to the community certainly outweighed” the desire not to involve the county and the court in the process.
Chase County District Court Judge John Sanderson appointed three appraisers to value the land for the court, and last month the court set the property value at slightly less than $11,000.
“The whole process has been gone through now. The court has established a value of the land, and we have made a deposit of those funds with the court, and the property is now being transferred to Chase County, who will be the owner of the property,” Schmidt said.
The coalition has received funds from the Jones Trust that will be used to help finance the trail.
The Trail group and Pinkston, who has the right to appeal the court’s decision, have been in contact this month and the dispute over the price of the property may be resolved soon.
“We’ve been negotiating and hope to have a final agreement on Friday,” Mike Holder, a member of the committee, said earlier this week.