Bike Ride on Converted Railroad Trail is a Journey Through Time

Riding bicycles along the Katy Trail in Missouri is a reminder of bygone years between Clinton and Calhoun. The ride east out of Clinton traverses farm fields for three miles, so the sky is clearly visible along the mainly flat route. At this point, the trail crosses several creeks -- Deer Creek, Sand Creek, and two forks of the Tebo Creek, among others -- and the landscape and noises change significantly.

Sights and Sounds on the Katy Trail

The ride along the trail between Clinton and Calhoun is an easy one as the elevation changes little except for small rises and falls leading to creeks. We saw only a few bicycle riders along the trail. Pictures of solitude are a little misleading because of occasional loud motor engines from the highway 50 feet away. However, the visual beauty is accented by the sounds of nature -- what seems like millions of frogs in the area marked "prairie restoration" and the early sounds of Missouri cicadas. The cicadas are as loud as bird screeches, but don't have the synchronized rhythm they exhibit later in the Summer when their buzz is deafening. Some people that aren't from Missouri "freak out" when the cicadas reach their full volume and rhythm -- you have to grow to appreciate the sound. The unmistakable sound is cherished by many people as a landmark of the area. I can still recall hearing these sounds for the first time during return trips to Missouri to visit family in Sedalia and Boonville.

Coal Mining in Missouri
Along the trail between Calhoun and Clinton the landscape shows the barely visible signs of strip mining. If the Calhoun trail marker had not mentioned this history, I would not have thought to look differently at the landscape along the Katy Trail. There are several areas where the long, deep trenches created from strip mining have marked the landscape with open scars of earth still evident or filled with water. A satellite image of this area shows long, slender ponds outlining the areas of the strip mining.

The Tebo coalfield in the area was used for locomotive fuel and later for energy production as noted by a 1984 "Missouri Coal" report.

Coal, sometimes nicknamed "the rock that burns," is a product of nature's continual growth and decay.

Although not a true coal, peat is considered to be its first stage of development. Further stages of development. Further stages of development are the soft coals lignite, or brown coal; subbituminous coal; bituminous coal; and finally, anthractie, or hard coal

The coal we use now is as much as 300 million years old, formed in an era when lush vegetation and steamy, tropical conditions existed over much of the world.

On the Katy Trail near Calhoun, Missouri. This photo is an example

of prominent signs of strip mining coal in this area, where a pond has
formed in the deep trench created from the mining.

The report goes on to explain how productive the coal mine near Calhoun was: "The Tebo field was  the largest producing area in the state before mining activity increased in the Bevier field in the late 1970s." Further, the Tebo field constituted 10 percent of Missouri's production.

"Most early coal mines in Missouri were underground. Interest in strip mining developed in the mid-1930s, and by the late 1960s, it was the only method used," the coal report states.

The abundance of coal throughout this area, along with other mine operations, may have encouraged my father to develop a keen interest in minerals and mining. After serving the military in WW2, he studied at what once was called the Missouri School of Mines (now Missouri University of Science and Technology) earning a degree in mining engineering.

The Clinton-to-Calhoun biking trail has revealed a breaktaking beauty and opened up an important part of Missouri history near where generations of my family have lived.