Ceremony celebrates trail segment opening

By RICHARD JENKINS

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Bessemer - Non-motorized trail supporters and local officials gathered at Moore Street in Bessemer Monday for a ceremony marking the opening of the second local phase of the statewide Iron Belle Trail.

The opening of the newest phase extends the popular trail from the Ironwood city limits to Bessemer's Moore Street. The new section measures approximately 4.2 miles, bringing the total length of the trail to 6.7 miles.

During the ceremony, Coleman Engineering's Paul Anderson, who has helped oversee the trail's construction, said this distance means the trail is now long enough to host half marathons from Ironwood to Bessemer and back.

Local efforts ultimately plan for an additional two phases, the first extending it to Ramsay and then onto Sunday Lake in Wakefield. From Wakefield, the Iron Belle trail will ultimately run to Belle Isle in Detroit.

Ron Yesney, the Upper Peninsula Trails Coordinator with the Department of Natural Resources, credited the community for stepping up and making sure the trail happened.

"The DNR provides the resources, but we need local partners to make things happen," Yesney said. "I'm looking forward to working in the future to go all the way to Wakefield with this corridor, and we'll do everything that we can. I'm just glad that we have the local partnership that we have."

During the ceremony, it was also announced that the local Kiwanis group and other community partners were donating $1,000 for future trail maintenance.

After the ceremony, Yesney told the Daily Globe that not only was the trail a great recreational opportunity but it also shows off the area's history.

"One of the key components of the (state's) trails plan is connecting communities. So what we want to do is, is we want to connect communities with trail systems to bring economic development and recreational opportunities to these communities," Yesney said. "So in this situation, you have an ideal scenario where you have two railroad corridors that have been abandoned ... now we can use these two corridors for recreational activity and help bring people and use the corridors to tell the story - to tell the history - of Bessemer, Ironwood, Wakefield and Ramsay.

"People are very interested in history and there is a lot of history to be told. I see this not just as a recreational trail, I see it as a historic interpretive trail."

Construction of the second trail segment began in July, Anderson said, and some final work on the trail - such as pouring the concrete approaches - still needs to be complete.

The segment of trail cost roughly $1.4 million, which included DNR and Department of Transportation grants, as well as approximately $300,000 in local matching funds from area room taxes.

Going forward, Anderson said it will be two to three years before Phase 3 to Ramsay is complete, as the trail route needs to be finalized and grants applied for to cover the costs.

Yesney said the efforts to build the Iron Belle Trail in other areas of the state were also "very successful," adding the support of Gov. Rick Snyder has been key in moving forward.

"They've been able to develop very key connectors in the Lower Peninsula," Yesney said. "With the governor's support, the DNR has been able to make accomplishments that we were never able to make in the past, in terms of working with landowners and working with railroad companies."

As Snyder wants the trail completed before he leaves office, Yesney said the DNR hopes to have it completed in some fashion in the next two years.

"It will be done, but we'll be looking for opportunities to improve it as time goes on," he said.