CARTHAGE, Mo. — The prospect for a safer, longer and evenly surfaced hiking and biking trail, easily accessible to Carthage residents, is getting brighter, despite a couple of small clouds on the horizon.
In October 2006, the city accepted a $100,000 federal grant, to be administered through the Missouri Department of Transportation, to complete the first phase of a 16-mile trail leading from Carthage to the Kansas state line. The Ruby Jack Trail will follow the former Burlington Northern rail line, which the company abandoned and made available for the express purpose of a hiking and biking trail under the federal government’s rails-to-trails program.
Chip Curtis, president of the Joplin Trails Coalition, which has undertaken the trail project, said the first phase will cover about 3 1/2 miles: a little over two miles from Carthage to County Road 180, and an additional mile along the north side of Oronogo.
An entrance gate and access road to the rail bed from a trail head on Oak Street, across from Carthage Municipal Park, have been completed. The trail head, a small piece of land provided and maintained by the city, has ample room for parking.
The trail name, Ruby Jack, suggested by one of Curtis’ colleagues at Missouri Southern State University, is reflective of one of the varieties of zinc mined in Southwest Missouri around the turn of the 20th century.
Sprenkle & Associates must put finishing touches on engineering plans for the trail before construction can begin, Curtis said. The trail will be 10 feet wide, surfaced with crushed limestone and situated in the middle of the 100-foot-wide abandoned corridor. Curtis said a couple of areas may be paved, and small parking areas are to be incorporated at various points along the trail so that county residents may access it quickly.
The Joplin Trails Coalition also has received approval for a second grant that would be used to connect the first two completed segments. Paul Teverow, also a coalition member, said: “Unfortunately, construction costs are proving more than we had planned. Prices have risen” since the project’s inception.
Curtis hopes this “bump” in the trail can be smoothed over through local fund-raising efforts. “We may attempt to do some (construction) with contributions of volunteer materials and volunteer labor,” he said.
The not-for-profit coalition is the organization that made possible the 3 1/2-mile Frisco Greenway Trail that runs through Webb City and Joplin. This group of volunteers has the experience and the ambition to carry through this much larger project that can only be a boon to Southwest Missouri. Carthage (and Jasper County) residents have gone far too long without adequate trails that provide a healthy, safe avenue offering fitness, fun and family bonding in one great package deal.
