The Katy

Station 01 / 15 · Mile 26.9

Where the Rails Met

MACHENS — MILE 26.9

You start at the end. The Katy Trail’s eastern terminus lies in the flat bottomland of northern St. Charles County, and the first thing to know about it is that you can’t drive there. The nearest parking is the Black Walnut trailhead on Music Ferry Road, about three miles west. Riders who want to say they did the whole trail park at Black Walnut, pedal east to the last post, touch it, and turn around. That is six miles before your trip properly begins, and they are worth it.

Machens was a railroad place, not a river town. Missouri State Parks says it was also known as Texas Junction: the point where the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, the Katy, met the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy. From here the Katy ran west along the north bank of the Missouri River, through the towns this serial visits, toward Sedalia.

The trains stopped in 1986. On October 4 of that year the Missouri flooded and badly damaged the track, and the railroad ended service on the line from Machens to Sedalia rather than repair it. What happened next is the reason there is a trail. An amendment to the National Trails System Act lets a rail corridor that is no longer needed be “banked” for future transportation and used as a trail in the meantime. Edward D. “Ted” Jones Jr. and his wife, Pat, paid to buy the right-of-way; construction began in 1987, and the first section opened at Rocheport in 1990. Katy Trail State Park now runs 240 miles, from here to Clinton, and the park calls it the longest developed rail-trail in the country.

The mile markers don’t begin at zero. They carry the old railroad’s numbering, so your first post reads 26.9 and the last one, at Clinton, reads 264.6.

Don’t expect the pale, packed limestone you’ve seen in photographs, not yet. Between Machens and St. Charles the surface is dirt under a roof of trees, and because the sun can’t reach it, it stays muddy for a while after rain. Take it slowly. There is nothing to buy out here, so carry what you need.

The Machens milepost comes from bikekatytrail.com, not a state park page, and the coordinates are approximate.

On the trail No car access at Machens. Park at the Black Walnut trailhead on Music Ferry Road and ride about 3 miles east to the end. No water to count on; fill up before you leave the car.

Station 02 / 15 · Mile 39.5

The First Capital

ST. CHARLES — MILE 39.5

The dirt path from Machens runs about twelve and a half miles south to St. Charles, and somewhere along the way the trees open and the city comes up around you. After a morning of bottomland it is a jolt: traffic, voices, old brick. It is one of the oldest towns on the whole route.

Missouri State Parks calls St. Charles “one of the most historic towns along the route,” settled by the French in the mid-1700s. When Missouri became a state in 1821, St. Charles served as its first capital, until the government moved to Jefferson City in 1826. You will pass Jefferson City later on this ride, about a hundred trail miles west.

The other story here is the one the whole river corridor tells. On May 21, 1804, the Lewis and Clark Expedition set out from St. Charles up the Missouri. The Katy follows the river they travelled for much of the way west, and Missouri State Parks notes that the trail from Cooper County to St. Charles County is an official segment of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail. If you ride the whole thing you trace the Corps of Discovery’s first weeks, never far from the water, at a much easier pace than a keelboat.

The trail runs along the riverfront below the old town, and the brick blocks of Main Street are a short walk up from it. It is a good place to stop for coffee and to find a bench.

Practically, St. Charles is where the Katy you’ve seen in pictures begins: west of here the dirt gives way to crushed limestone, firm and flat when dry and soft for a day or so after heavy rain. Missouri State Parks points riders to restrooms at the visitors bureau and at Kister Park on South Main Street, and to water at businesses near the trail. The next official trailheads, Greens Bottom Road and Weldon Spring, come quickly, and after that the city falls away for good.

On the trail Missouri State Parks points riders to restrooms at the visitors bureau (230 S. Main St.) and Kister Park (408 S. Main St.), and to water at trailside businesses.

Station 03 / 15 · Mile 66.3

The First Wine Country

AUGUSTA — MILE 66.3

West of St. Charles the Katy finally becomes a river trail. On the twenty-seven miles to Augusta the Missouri is off your left shoulder, sometimes close, sometimes across a spread of fields, and more and more often there is rock on your right. Missouri State Parks describes limestone bluffs along the trail through Weldon Spring Conservation Area, and this is where you first ride under them: gray walls with trees growing out of the ledges.

The state park calls this whole section the heart of “Missouri’s Rhineland,” after the Germans who came to this part of the state in large numbers in the mid-1800s.

You pass through Defiance on the way, and its name comes with a story. According to Missouri State Parks, the town earned it by building a depot in 1894 to lure the railroad stop away from its neighbor, Augusta. The rivalry is long settled; both towns are pleasant places to stop.

East of Augusta, look for pale rock. The park says the Klondike Quarry area has “a particularly fine exposure of St. Peter sandstone,” a white quartz sandstone that was once ground up on the site for making glass.

Augusta itself was first settled in 1836 on the bluffs overlooking the river, and it became, in the park’s words, “the center of German cultural traditions.” The Germans planted vineyards, and the wine stuck. On June 20, 1980, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms made the country around Augusta the first American Viticultural Area in the United States, ahead of Napa Valley.

The trailhead has water, restrooms and parking, and Missouri State Parks lists lodging, wineries and brewing in town, with camping nearby. If you plan to taste, plan to walk the bike for a while afterward. The next trailhead west is Dutzow, a few miles on.

On the trail Water, restrooms and parking at the Augusta trailhead. Water at some trailheads is shut off November through March.

Station 04 / 15 · Mile 77.7

Boone Country

MARTHASVILLE — MILE 77.7

The eleven miles from Augusta to Marthasville are easy riding, mostly flat, on the old railbed through the river bottoms. On the way you roll through Dutzow. Look at the storefronts there and again in Marthasville. Missouri State Parks points out the “ornate stamped metal fronts” on the old store buildings in both towns, which it credits to the industrial age the railroad brought with it.

This is Daniel Boone’s last country. Boone came to Missouri from Kentucky with his family in 1799, when it was still Spanish territory. He died in September 1820 at his son Nathan’s home near Defiance, the railroad town you passed on the way to Augusta, and was buried beside his wife, Rebecca, in the Bryan family cemetery near Marthasville. Missouri State Parks puts that first grave site about a mile east of town, “only a short distance from the trail.”

Whether Boone is still in it is a question people here enjoy. In 1845 the Boones were dug up and reburied in Frankfort, Kentucky. Some in Missouri have long said the diggers took the wrong man. Nobody has settled it, and you don’t need to.

The town’s history reaches back further than its name. Missouri State Parks says Marthasville was established around 1800 near the site of a French trading post from 1763. The city’s own history says the town was platted in 1817 by Dr. John Young, who named it for his wife, Martha. The railroad came through in the 1890s, and the trail followed in the 1990s.

Missouri State Parks lists water, restrooms and parking at the trailhead, and a grocery and deli, lodging, restaurants and a winery in town. It is a sensible place for lunch before the long, lonely miles west toward Treloar and Hermann, where the bluffs come back and grow tall.

On the trail Water, restrooms and parking at the trailhead (water and restrooms may be off November through March). Groceries and food in town. Daniel Boone’s first grave site is about a mile east of Marthasville, a short distance from the trail.

Station 05 / 15 · Mile 100.8

Across the River from Hermann

McKITTRICK — MILE 100.8

Leave Marthasville with full bottles. The twenty-three miles to McKittrick pass Treloar and a string of small stops, and west of Treloar the scenery changes. Missouri State Parks says the bluffs here, limestone shading into sandstone, are particularly spectacular west of Treloar, where “they tower above you more than 250 feet.” (The park says the same of the country west of Bluffton, on the next leg.) It is a good stretch to ride slowly, with the rock on one side and the river bottoms on the other. The park also notes that birds and wildflowers are abundant along this section.

McKittrick is the trailhead; Hermann is the reason most people stop. The town sits on the south bank of the Missouri, and you reach it by crossing the river on Highway 19. The trail doesn’t cross with you, so plan on coming back the same way.

Hermann was planned as a German town on purpose. In the 1830s the German Settlement Society of Philadelphia, worried that German immigrants in the East were losing their language and customs too quickly, set out to build a colony in the West that would stay German. The society’s agent bought the land, and the first settlers arrived in the winter of 1837. Missouri State Parks describes Hermann today as a town “known for its German heritage and its vineyards,” and the state runs the Deutschheim State Historic Site there, devoted to that German past.

The trailhead has water, restrooms and parking. Across the river, Missouri State Parks lists places to eat, bed-and-breakfasts and inns, a grocery, an information center, and bike rentals and service, which makes Hermann one of the better places on the eastern half of the trail to fix a problem or spend the night.

Ahead lies the longest gap between stations in this serial: forty-two miles to North Jefferson. There are small trailheads along the way, at Portland, Mokane and Tebbetts, but it’s wise to top up here.

On the trail Water, restrooms and parking at the McKittrick trailhead (water and restrooms may be off November through March). Hermann, with food, lodging and bike service, is across the Missouri on Highway 19.

Station 06 / 15 · Mile 143.2

The Capital Across the Water

NORTH JEFFERSON — MILE 143.2

This is the long one: forty-two miles from McKittrick with only small towns between. Past Rhineland, the bluffs rise again west of Bluffton, which Missouri State Parks singles out, along with Treloar, as the place where the rock towers “more than 250 feet” over the trail. Then come Portland, Mokane and Tebbetts. The park says these towns were either established as river towns or sprang up because of the railroad.

You may share this stretch with horses. Missouri State Parks allows them on the trail from Tebbetts to Portland, and the Mokane trailhead is the official parking area for horse trailers. Slow down, speak up so the horse knows you’re there, and give it room.

North Jefferson sits on the north bank across from Missouri’s capital. St. Charles, the first capital, gave up the government in 1826, and it has been in Jefferson City since. Missouri State Parks points to the Capitol, which overlooks the river, and to Jefferson Landing State Historic Site in town, if you want to make the trip over.

That trip begins at the trailhead. The park says the Jefferson City Parks and Recreation Department built and maintains a Katy spur that meets the main trail here and runs about a mile south to a pavilion near Highways 63 and 54. A second spur, the John Sweet Trail Spur, runs about three-quarters of a mile north and connects by road to Holts Summit.

The trailhead itself has water, restrooms and parking, and the park lists bike rental and repair, food and groceries, lodging, restaurants and shuttle services nearby. After forty-two miles, that bike shop may be the most welcome item on the park’s list. Refill everything; the next town with a trailhead, Hartsburg, is about ten miles west.

On the trail Water, restrooms and parking at the North Jefferson trailhead. A city-built spur runs about 1 mile south toward Jefferson City; the John Sweet Trail Spur runs about 3/4 mile north toward Holts Summit.

Station 07 / 15 · Mile 153.6

Hart City

HARTSBURG — MILE 153.6

Ten miles out of North Jefferson you ride into Boone County and into Hartsburg, the kind of trail town the Katy made. A railroad station named Hart City was set up here in 1893, when the MKT’s line along the north bank of the river was going in, and the town was incorporated as Hartsburg in 1901. The farm families here had sold the railroad its right-of-way. A hundred years later the railroad was gone and the right-of-way had become the trail that brings visitors back.

Most of the year Hartsburg is quiet: a small town in the river bottoms. The exception is the second weekend of October, when the Hartsburg Pumpkin Festival, held since 1991, draws tens of thousands of people to a town of fewer than two hundred residents. If you ride through that weekend, go slowly and expect company.

The trailhead has water, restrooms, parking and a phone, and Missouri State Parks lists camping and bed-and-breakfast lodging in town, along with shuttle services.

The next twenty-five miles to Rocheport are some of the best on the trail, so it’s worth knowing what’s ahead. You pass Easley, then reach the McBaine trailhead at mile 169.5, which has parking and a restroom. At McBaine a spur, the MKT Trail, leaves for Columbia. A little past McBaine, near mile 170.7, look south across the field for a great, spreading tree standing alone: the Williamson bur oak, Missouri’s champion of its kind, which the National Park Service tracks as a site on the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail. It stands on private farmland, so admire it from the road.

Then the bluffs close in on your right, and you are riding into the country Clark wrote about.

On the trail Water, restrooms, parking and a phone at the trailhead (water and restrooms may be off November through March). On the second weekend of October the Pumpkin Festival fills the town; expect crowds on the trail.

Station 08 / 15 · Mile 178.3

Through the Bluff

ROCHEPORT — MILE 178.3

At the middle stop of this ride, the Katy runs into a limestone bluff and, for 243 feet, straight through it.

From McBaine the trail runs west between the river and the rock, and the bluffs get closer and taller as you go. Watch the cliff faces. Missouri State Parks says a rare surviving American Indian pictograph can be seen above Lewis and Clark Cave along this stretch; entering the cave is not allowed. The National Park Service notes preserved rock art at Torbett Spring, about four miles downriver from Rocheport. Keep both in mind. They are what is left of something larger.

Rocheport’s trailhead sits at the foot of First Street, at mile 178.3, with water, restrooms and parking. The trail has a claim on this town: the first section of Katy Trail State Park opened here, on April 28, 1990. The town is older than the trail by a long way. John Gray ran a ferry at the mouth of Moniteau Creek from around 1819, and the townsite was surveyed in 1825 under a French name, “rocky port,” for the bluffs. The whole town has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1976, and Missouri State Parks points out that some of its houses date from before the Civil War.

Ride west, and in less than half a mile the bluff swallows the trail. The Rocheport tunnel is a stone-arched passage 243 feet long, built for the MKT around 1893. It is cool inside even in August, dark enough that a light helps, and the far end opens onto the valley again.

The bluffs have a name older than the railroad: Manitou, or Moniteau, from the Algonquian word for the Great Spirit. On June 7, 1804, the Lewis and Clark Expedition stopped at the mouth of the creek, and William Clark wrote:

a Short distance above the mouth of this Creek, is Several Courious Paintings and Carveing in the projecting rock of Limestone inlade with white red & blue flint

The men also found the rocks full of rattlesnakes and killed three. The paintings Clark saw are gone. According to the National Park Service, building the railroad tunnel in the 1890s “obliterated a large segment of the bluff along the west side of Moniteau Creek.” The tunnel you ride through, and grin through, stands where the pictographs used to be.

Come back into town afterward. Missouri State Parks lists bike rentals and a café, groceries and a general store, a winery on the bluff above town, and several bed-and-breakfasts. It is a good place to stop for the night, with seven stations behind you and seven ahead.

The tunnel’s date is given as “circa 1893” by Missouri State Parks; some local accounts put the cutting in 1892.

On the trail Water, restrooms and parking at the trailhead at the foot of First Street (water and restrooms may be off November through March). The tunnel is less than half a mile west. Bike rentals, food and a general store in town.

Station 09 / 15 · Mile 188.2

Where the Santa Fe Trail Began

NEW FRANKLIN — MILE 188.2

West of the tunnel the trail stays under the bluffs for a while, with the Missouri just beyond the trees, and then the valley widens and you ride out into the Howard County bottoms. The ten miles to New Franklin are flat and quiet, and it is easy to forget that you’re riding through one of the busiest pieces of frontier Missouri.

The busy town was not New Franklin. It was Franklin, down on the river. Settled in 1816, Franklin grew quickly; by 1820 it was second only to St. Louis in population in the territory, with more than two hundred buildings. In September 1821 William Becknell left Franklin with a few companions on the trading trip that opened the Santa Fe Trail. Missouri State Parks notes that the historic Franklin site is “associated with the beginning of the Santa Fe Trail.” Readers of The Road have been here before: Boone’s Lick Road ran west to Franklin, too.

Franklin was built on sandy ground by the river, and the river took it. Floods in 1826 and 1828 cut away the banks, and in 1828 the town’s people moved to higher ground and started again as New Franklin.

The New Franklin trailhead has water, restrooms, parking and a phone, and Missouri State Parks lists camping in town. It’s also the place to get ready for the river crossing. Boonville is only 3.6 trail miles away, but it’s on the other side of the Missouri, and the bridge you use isn’t the railroad’s.

One more practical note: the stretch between Rocheport and Boonville has had closures in recent years for bridge work. Check the Missouri State Parks status page before you rely on it.

On the trail Water, restrooms, parking and a phone at the New Franklin trailhead (water and restrooms may be off November through March). Boonville, with more services, is 3.6 trail miles on, across the river.

Station 10 / 15 · Mile 191.8

Two Bridges

BOONVILLE — MILE 191.8

The short run from New Franklin ends at the river, and here the Katy does something it does nowhere else on this ride: it crosses the Missouri. The railroad crossed on its own bridge. You don’t. Trail users cross on the U.S. 40 highway bridge, the Boonslick Bridge, sharing it with cars, and from the deck you can see the bridge the trains used standing a short way off.

That is the Katy Bridge. The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad built it in 1932 to replace an 1873 crossing, and its 408-foot center span could be raised straight up to let river traffic pass. Its histories call it the longest central vertical-lift railroad span in the country. After the trains stopped in 1986 it sat unused, and in the 2000s the plan was to take it down. Boonville residents, the state and then-Attorney General Jay Nixon fought the demolition. The city acquired the bridge from the Union Pacific in 2010, and the first segment reopened to people on foot in 2016. The trail does not use it; the highway bridge is the way across.

On the south bank, Boonville is a river town that turned into a railroad town. Missouri State Parks describes it as a place that made that transition, “from being a major river port to a booming railroad town.” Its MKT depot, off Highway 40 at about mile 191, is one of the four restored depots on the Katy Trail, done in the Santa Fe Mission style.

The trailhead has water, restrooms and parking, and Missouri State Parks lists food, groceries, lodging and restaurants in town. It’s a good place to eat and rest, because the trail changes character from here. For more than 160 miles you have followed the river. At Boonville the Katy turns southwest, away from the water, toward Sedalia. The park says the stretch from Boonville to Sedalia is more rolling, with pasture, row crops, deep woods and river bottoms, and warns that “bikers can expect to pedal more strenuously here.” On an old railroad grade, “strenuous” is relative.

On the trail Water, restrooms and parking at the Boonville trailhead. You cross the Missouri on the U.S. 40 highway bridge, shared with traffic; take it steadily and single file.

Station 11 / 15 · Mile 203.3

The Grove That Showed the Way

PILOT GROVE — MILE 203.3

Out of Boonville the grade tilts up for the first time in a long while. It is still a railroad grade, gentle by any road cyclist’s standard, but after 165 miles of river-level riding you notice it. Missouri State Parks describes this part of the trail as the transition from the Osage Plains into the Ozark borderlands, and the country shows it: pasture and row crops, then deep woods, then a creek bottom, then fields again. The river is behind you now. You won’t see it again on this ride.

Pilot Grove is the first trailhead past Boonville. Its name is a piece of travel advice from before the railroad. The town was named for an old-growth grove of hickory trees that served travelers as a landmark, a “pilot” to steer by in open country. The town itself was platted in 1873, and Missouri State Parks counts it among the small communities along this stretch that were shaped by the railroad.

It’s a small, practical stop. The trailhead has water, restrooms and parking, and Missouri State Parks lists bed-and-breakfast lodging in town and shuttle services along the trail. The park’s list stops there, so plan accordingly.

That matters for the next leg. It’s about twenty-six trail miles from Pilot Grove to Sedalia, and the one official trailhead in between, Clifton City at mile 215.4, lists parking and a restroom but no water. Fill up here, carry a snack, and if you’re riding in the heat of summer, start early. The rolling country between here and Sedalia has more shade than the prairie that comes after it, but don’t count on buying what you forgot along the way.

On the trail Water, restrooms and parking at the Pilot Grove trailhead (water and restrooms may be off November through March). Services are thin from here to Sedalia; Clifton City, the next trailhead, lists parking and a restroom but no water.

Station 12 / 15 · Mile 229

The Railroad’s Town

SEDALIA — MILE 229

The long rolling leg from Pilot Grove passes Clifton City and ends in Sedalia. Sedalia was, in Missouri State Parks’ words, “once a hub of activity for the MKT railroad,” and the building that proves it sits beside the trail.

The Katy Depot opened on May 10, 1896. The New York architect Bradford Lee Gilbert designed it, a two-story Romanesque building that cost more than $40,000, and it was one of the largest depots the MK&T had between St. Louis and Kansas City, with a dining room downstairs and offices above. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, the first building in Sedalia to be listed. Restoration began in 1998 and was finished in 2001. Today it is the town’s welcome center and railroad heritage site, and a trailhead. Missouri State Parks lists it as a place for bike rentals and repairs, food and restrooms.

Sedalia is also where one part of the trail’s history ends and another begins. The 1986 closing that freed the corridor covered the line from Machens to Sedalia; the line from Sedalia to Clinton came to the trail separately. Missouri State Parks says the Union Pacific donated that corridor in 1991. The Sedalia-to-Clinton section of the trail opened in 1999, three years after the section from St. Charles to Sedalia.

The town is home to the Missouri State Fair, and the fairgrounds matter to you as a rider: from the State Fairgrounds parking area west to Clinton, horses are allowed on the trail. Keep an ear out, pass wide and slow.

The trailhead has water, restrooms and parking. Missouri State Parks lists bike rental and repair, camping, food and groceries, lodging and restaurants, and shuttle services. If anything on your bike needs attention, this is the place to deal with it; the last thirty-five miles to Clinton cross open country, once prairie and now mostly farmland, with small towns at short intervals.

On the trail Water, restrooms and parking at the Sedalia trailhead. The Katy Depot, 600 E. Third St., is listed by Missouri State Parks for bike rentals, repairs, food and restrooms. Horses share the trail west of the State Fairgrounds.

Station 13 / 15 · Mile 248

The Crossroads

WINDSOR — MILE 248

Leaving Sedalia, the land flattens and opens. Missouri State Parks says much of the route between Sedalia and Clinton crosses land that was once prairie. Most of it is farmland now, but the park says prairie plants such as big bluestem and compass plant can still be found along the trail. You pass Green Ridge on the way, and the sky gets bigger with every mile.

Windsor began with a different name. The town was platted in 1855 as Belmont. When someone tried to change the name, the postal authorities pointed out that Missouri already had a Belmont, and another candidate name was also taken. Windsor, after the English castle, was adopted in 1859. The town sits in the northeast corner of Henry County and reaches a little way into Pettis County.

For riders, Windsor matters as a crossroads. It is where the Katy meets the Rock Island Trail. Missouri State Parks says the developed section of Rock Island Trail State Park, opened in 2016, runs 47.5 miles from Windsor to Pleasant Hill, on the old Rock Island railroad corridor toward Kansas City. The two parks share the Windsor trailhead. If you started at Machens, you could turn northwest here and keep going; this serial holds to the Katy and turns southwest, toward the end of the line.

The trailhead has water, restrooms and parking, and Missouri State Parks lists camping, food and groceries, lodging, restaurants and shuttle services in town. From here it’s only 16.6 miles to Clinton, with Calhoun halfway, so even tired legs can count down the finish.

On the trail Water, restrooms and parking at the Windsor trailhead (water and restrooms may be off November through March). The trailhead is shared with Rock Island Trail State Park, which runs 47.5 miles northwest to Pleasant Hill.

Station 14 / 15 · Mile 255.5

Jugtown and the Tallgrass

CALHOUN — MILE 255.5

The seven and a half miles from Windsor to Calhoun are open, straight and quiet, and they bring you to the start of the Katy’s last and in some ways most unusual stretch.

Calhoun is older than the railroad by decades. The city’s history says James Nash established the town in 1835 and named it for John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, the senator and vice president. It was incorporated in 1870. Its early industry was pottery: the city says as many as six potteries operated here at once, shipping earthenware widely enough that the town earned the nickname “Jugtown.” By the late 1800s, it counted more than fifty businesses and about eight hundred residents.

West of town the land along the trail is turning back into prairie, on purpose. Missouri State Parks says the nine miles between Calhoun and Clinton are being restored to tallgrass prairie, using controlled burns, the tool that kept the old grasslands open. Out here the Katy stops being a corridor through farm country and becomes a strip of the landscape that used to cover much of this part of the state. The park lists the birds you’re likely to hear in it: bobwhite, killdeer, mourning doves and meadowlarks.

It is worth riding this stretch slowly, especially in summer, when the grasses are up. If you pass a blackened section, that is the restoration at work, not an accident.

The Calhoun trailhead has water, restrooms and parking, and the park notes a phone on the downtown square. Missouri State Parks lists camping and lodging in the area rather than in town. Nine miles of grass separate you from the end of the trail.

On the trail Water, restrooms and parking at the Calhoun trailhead, with a phone on the downtown square (water and restrooms may be off November through March).

Station 15 / 15 · Mile 264.6

End of the Line

CLINTON — MILE 264.6

The last nine miles run through the restored prairie from Calhoun, and then the grass gives way to the edge of town and the trail simply stops. Milepost 264.6. You have come 237.7 miles from the first post at Machens, most of them along the Missouri River and the rest across the old prairie of west-central Missouri.

Clinton is the seat of Henry County. It was founded in 1836 and named for DeWitt Clinton, the New York governor who pushed through the Erie Canal. The railroad reached town in 1870, when about 840 people lived here, and the place grew around a downtown square that is now the heart of the Clinton Square Historic District. If you have any energy left, it is worth the short ride to see it.

The end of the Katy is not a single trailhead with a sign and a lot. Missouri State Parks lists parking, restrooms and water at the Clinton Community Center and at the Henry County Museum, and parking for horse trailers at the Henry County Fairgrounds. There is camping and lodging in town, and the chamber of commerce can help with visitor information. If you need a ride back east, Missouri State Parks keeps a list of shuttle services on its trail services page.

Stand at the end for a minute. The trail you just rode was a railroad for close to a century, then a flood-damaged line that the railroad gave up in 1986, then a gift: Ted and Pat Jones’s money, the rail-banking law, and the Union Pacific’s donation of the corridor from Sedalia to here. The first piece opened at Rocheport in 1990. Missouri State Parks now calls it the longest developed rail-trail in the country.

That’s the Katy. Two hundred forty miles, give or take the spurs, one station at a time. The river is a long way behind you now. So is the tunnel. You can start back whenever you like.

On the trail The Clinton trailhead has no single lot. Missouri State Parks lists parking, restrooms and water at the Clinton Community Center and the Henry County Museum, and horse-trailer parking at the Henry County Fairgrounds.