There are over 600 miles of paved trail in the State of Minnesota. That’s great news for people who love to hit the trail. However, only 15 miles of those trails are located in southwest Minnesota.

The Casey Jones Trail was the first designated state trails in Minnesota. However, 50 years after it was officially designated as a trail, it still is not fully paved and portions that are paved have fallen into disrepair.

The vision is to have 100 miles of trail from Luverne, north to Blue Mounds State Park, northwest to Jasper, Ihlen, and Split Rock State Park, and then north to Pipestone.  This visionary trail, which has yet to be made, would connect at Pipestone with the existing trail. From Pipestone, the trail follows the former railroad grade from the Pipestone County Fairgrounds east to Woodstock. Five miles of this segment is paved – from Pipestone to County Road 16. The remaining 8 miles are natural surface.

A second natural surface segment runs west 1.5 miles from the city of Lake Wilson. In between that section and Lake Wilson, there is not yet trail.

A third portion of the trail is paved. It is six miles of paved trail between Lake Shetek State Park and the city of Currie. This portion of paved trail has fallen into disrepair and while it can be walked and biked, roller blades are no longer an option because the pavement is very rough.

The Friends of The Casey Jones Trail has asked Pipestone County to support their endeavors to find more funding for the trail. They are seeking to work with the Department of Natural Resources to change the trails classification from a secondary trail to a primary trail.

The DNR is the managing agency for the trail and about 8 years ago, the trail was designated as a secondary state trail corridor which gives it low or no priority for biennial budget or capital bonding requesting, acquisition funding, and for rehab and development.

The Friends group pointed out in materials that were given to the county board that visitor-ship at Lake Shetek State Park increased by 16,500 people from 1995 to 1996, after the Currie loop was completed.