PITTSBURG, Kan. — For about five years, Pittsburg Beautiful — a nonprofit civic group dedicated to doing just what its name implies — has been stockpiling funds in order to pay for a big project.
Members wanted it to be bigger than the concrete planters lining Broadway that they purchased and maintain.
And bigger than the signs they funded that mark the south and north entrances to town.
With the creation of a hiking and biking trail near 12th Street and Broadway, the group will have its chance to do just that.
Public Works Director Bill Beasley last week shared proposed plans for the trail and trail head for approval during a meeting of the city commissioners.
Those plans, which include a pergola of iron arches that echo the look of downtown’s Europe Park, have been a combined effort in the past year of the Pittsburg State University department of construction technology, the city staff and Pittsburg Beautiful.
When complete, the trail will be accessible for walkers and bikers. It will be near three schools and Leffler Park.
Pittsburg Beautiful’s Jim Buche told the commissioners about the group’s decision to fund a parking lot, sidewalks, signs, landscaping including trees and shrubs, a retaining wall, grass seeding, bike racks, a sprinkler system, and recognition signs for entities that have been instrumental in the trail project.
“We’re excited to do something rather large for the city,” he said. “We’d consider it an ongoing process … and fund anything else as time goes on that we can pass on to you as our contribution.”
The group’s contribution is the latest in a string of steps by several individuals and entities toward completing such a trail.
Watco Co., owned by the Webb family (also instrumental in developing Immigrant Park on the south end of the downtown area), donated the land for the hiking-biking trail and assisted the city in paving the road crossings.
The project also has received support from a $10,000 grant from the Pritchett Trust Fund (a fund established to support projects that have direct community impact); a $10,000 grant from the Sunflower Foundation Fund (a fund that serves health care related projects in Kansas); and $45,000 from the Skubitz Foundation that can be put toward the trail head. C.L. Farabi, of Pittsburg Bottling Co., agreed to donate the land for the trail head.
The project will create an opening to the north end of the downtown — an area that has seen significant improvements in recent years thanks to the streetscape program.
Before the commission’s unanimous approval for the project to proceed, Commissioner Patrick O’Bryan offered an appropriate challenge to the community: “It is a great public service, and an important example of what individuals can do who get together and have a vision and want to accomplish something.”
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