For nearly a century, the tracks of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad — the “Katy” — ran along the river bluffs through Rocheport. The trains carried freight and passengers past the same limestone walls that cyclists roll under today, and the last one rolled through in the 1980s before the corridor was reborn as the Katy Trail. Long before it was a place to ride a bike, this was a place to catch a train.
Rails along the river
The Missouri-Kansas-Texas built its line up the Missouri River valley in the late 19th century, threading the narrow shelf between the bluffs and the water. According to Missouri State Parks, which now manages the corridor, the railroad operated the route for generations as a working freight and passenger line linking river towns across the state.
The end of the line
By the 1980s, the economics of rail had shifted, and flooding along the river corridor helped push the Katy toward abandonment. The last trains ran in 1986. Rather than let the right-of-way disappear, the state acquired it under the federal “rails-to-trails” program, and the roadbed that once carried locomotives became the spine of the Katy Trail — today the longest developed rail-trail in the country.
What remains
The evidence of the railroad era is still all around Rocheport, from the flat, gently graded path itself to the depot-era streetscape of the town. (The Rocheport tunnel, the only tunnel on the entire Katy Trail, is a story of its own — watch for a separate piece.) The trail’s quiet is a fairly recent thing; for most of a century, this was one of the noisier corners of the county.
Sources
- Missouri State Parks, Katy Trail history: https://mostateparks.com/basic-page/trail-history-katy-trail
- BikeKatyTrail.com, MKT (Katy) railroad history: https://bikekatytrail.com/mkt.aspx
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