News : CELEBRATING THE CEDAR VALLEY NATURE TRAIL AT CENTER POINT DEPOT MUSEUM BIKE DAY

Speaking July 11 at the Center Point Historical Society Bike Day were Randy Burke and Ryan Schlader of the Linn County Conservation Department and Tom Peffer, president of the Linn County Trails Association.

The trio talked about how dramatically attitudes have changed in the forty-some years since the idea of public bike trails from abandoned railroad lines was just a gleam in the eye of people like Center Point's late Tom Neenan.

Neenan, who was also a mayor of Center Point and a member of the Linn County Conservation Board, was a founder of the Iowa Trails Council in the mid-1980s.

Burke, who started working for Conservation in 1979, called Tom Neenan an inspiration and important influence on the rails to trails movement. Burke said there was lots of dissention about bike trails in the beginning.

Special Bike Day guest T.J. Neenan, of Center Point, agreed, telling how his dad's car was rocked by an angry crowd after a trail meeting once.

But in 2022, about 140,000 walkers and bikers used the Cedar Valley Nature Trail. And by the fall of next year, Trail hard-surfacing, started in 2004, should be complete, with the help of state grant money.

Peffer said the Linn County Trails Association originated with some Rockwell engineers who said "we need trail counter machines." The bike trail "booster club" raises money for trails, and advocates for closing gaps in Cedar Rapids area trails.

Schlader showed slides on the history of the Linn County Conservation Department, which manages the Linn and Benton County parts of the Cedar Valley Nature Trail. Conservation is the landlord for the Center Point Historical Society at the Depot Museum. In 1984-85 Conservation, with grant monry, restored the abandoned 1914 Interurban Depot for about $65,000. Center Point's late Connie Dunn was contractor for the job, which included removing asbestos shingles and duplicating original paint colors.

The Depot Museum is open, free, Sundays from 2 to 5, through the end of October. The next program is a talk on railroad history by Marion historian David Wendell at 2 p.m. Aug. 13.