Not long ago we stopped along Union Street, where the Välkommen
Trail intersects, and looked both ways, as we do at nearly all the
Trail intersections, and it struck home that there is always something
pleasing about this walkway even if we’re not actually on it, striding
along or cruising on a bike. From most intersections the Trail moves
north and south in a kind of serpentine meandering, over lush grassy
slopes or along lines of high cedars, and among leafy little plots and
garden shrines that people have cultivated along the way.
And then there are the signs, more than two dozen special histori-
cal markers along the course, each a special commemoration in the
rich history of the Smoky Valley.
During this stretch of weather-to-be-outdoors, we applaud the
Trail, a crown jewel among Lindsborg public works projects. This
2.5-mile, $1.5 million bicycle and pedestrian trail was incubated on
Dec.28, 2000, when the City filed a request for a National Interim
Trail Use permit with the federal Surface Transportation Board, the
chief regulatory agency for railroads. The Trail was to be built on
the abandoned rail beds of the Missouri Pacific and Union Pacific
Railroads. Then followed a long stretch of wagering and haggling
with the railroads, and planning sessions among City officials and
local interests.
Construction of the Trail began in early March, 2006, with the
opening ceremony on July 29, a muggy Saturday morning. Even
with landscaping not quite finished, the project was thrilling, the
spread of its solid concrete, its trail heads, its lighting, its shaded
benches and rest stops. Here was government at work, helping a
community to be more livable, to polish its appeal. With each year
the Trail matures, acquiring patina, the reassuring comfort of func-
tion and familiarity.
LONG BEFORE the City officially opened the Trail, the Smoky
Valley Historical Association had adopted a project to erect 2 x
3-feet historical markers along its winding stretches with signs
placed at significant sites. Each sign is sponsored by a local busi-
ness or individual donors. The first two, unveiled in late May 2007,
mark the sites of the former Union Pacific and Missouri Pacific
Railroad depots.
“Without the railroads,” said the venerable Corky Malm,
“Lindsborg would not be here today. We hope the signs welcome
people to a historical trail of the people, businesses and industries
that have made Lindsborg what it is today.”
The Trail is a diary, an education in the area’s history along the
rail beds. The desire to build it led to a Historical Association Trail
Committee, led by Malm with members including John Riggs,
Ken Branch, Don Howe and board members Margaret Nelson,
Bill Carlson and Chet Peterson. Bertil Malm, Ken Swisher, Einar
Johnson and others have been involved, gathering at the sites to
help dig the holes for the sign posts and prepare a brief program for
installation ceremonies.
A couple of years ago, on May 12, a crew of about a half-dozen
wily, history-hardened veterans showed up at the Union Street
site to install a marker commemorating the Methodist Church in
Lindsborg. The sign gleamed with the likeness of a tomte from
its creator, the late Norman Malm, also a church member. (The
Methodist Episcopal Church, organized here in 1879, worshiped in
the Swedish Methodist Church until 1887, when members built a
church at 224 S. Main.)
Among the installation crew for this sign were Peterson and
Swisher, armed with a portable auger, men who had been part of the
installation of every sign along the Trail. They were there to make
short work of this one, their 25th, digging two 30-inch deep holes
for each leg of the sign’s heavy iron frame.
Short work became long work. The men had struck a solid layer
of chunk rock, once used to cushion the ties and rails in the days
when the railroads brought commerce to the Smoky Valley. They
had struck history, in hard form. It came loose reluctantly, a rock at
“It’s all my fault,” chuckled Bill Carlson, a regular with this vol-
unteer crew. He had worked for the railroads in Lindsborg decades
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ago (“78 cents an hour…”). Carlson was on his knees and elbows,
reaching with gloved hands into one of the holes, removing rock and
dirt a handful at a time. At one point, as the men were about to break
through the layer of rocks, Peterson looked up at the sign, pointed
at reference to Nels Peterson (the fi rst pastor) and said “That’s my
dad’s uncle.” More history, in the fl esh.
Corky Malm, Norman’s brother, surveyed the scene. “Normally,
we’d come in and be done in 20 minutes,” he said. “This hard dig-
ging, it fi ts … kind of like Norman … to be hard-headed, like this.”
IN JUNE, 2010, the Historical Association published an updated
edition of the illustrated booklet that documents its Trail signage
project. The free publication contains photographs and small nar-
ratives for 23 of the Trail’s signs and the community history that
the project celebrates. The original booklet, published in June 2007,
listed 17 signs. When the Association fi rst discussed a marker proj-
ect for the Trail, the goal was ten signs.
A year later, in May 2011, installation of a Trail sign with the title
“Lindsborg’s Boxcar Children” carried a candid and unswerving
message about the impact of railroads in the community. That sign
was erected at the location of a “railroad boxcar,” which served
as home for Martin and Frieda Opat and their family for nearly a
decade, from 1930 to 1939.
A special signifi cance came with this sign; the railroads brought
life to the early, emerging towns and cities of the Plains, and to
Lindsborg, where Martin Opat came to work for the railroad and to
raise a family – one that would ultimately include nine children, all
boys, all grateful that the railroads had provided work and, in their
case, shelter. They would become prominent, productive members
of the community.
The Trail’s historical markers are an affectionate, anecdotal
chronicling of more than a century in Lindsborg and the Smoky
Valley. They are the living enterprise of men and women who want
us to know how we have lived and died, prospered, perished, or
simply existed by nature’s quirky authority.
The Historical Association signs and sponsors (in parentheses)
are:
– A Brief History of Early Lindsborg (Lindsborg Community Foundation)
– Terrible Swedes (Lindsborg Quarterback Club)
– Bethany College (Wallace Chevrolet of McPherson)
– Birger Sandzén (Peoples Bank and Trust of McPherson)
– Messiah Chorus (First Bank of McPherson and Assaria)
– Bethany Lutheran Church (Doris Johnson Stump)
– Railways to Highways (Mid-Kansas Co-op)
– The Power Plant (Dauer Welding and Machine)
– Missouri Pacifi c Depot (Hemslöjd, Inc.)
– Site of Many Uses (Curtis and Jill Enterprises, LLC, dba Anderson Body Shop)
– Home and Studio of Anton Pearson (Corky and Deloris Malm)
– Hagstrom Manufacturing Company (Lindsborg Concrete Products)
– Crossing the Smoky (Midway Motors of McPherson)
– The Swedish Pavilion (Dr. Duane and Nancy Fredrickson)
– Smoky Valley Roller Mill (Lindsborg State Bank)
– Crescent Flour Mill (Scott’s Hometown Foods)
– Kansas Pacifi c Depot (Farmers State Bank)
– Red Barn Studio and Museum (Lindsborg Lions, Kiwanis and Rotary service
clubs)
– Messiah Lutheran Church (members of Messiah Lutheran Church)
– Hobo Camp on the Smoky (members of the Trail Sign Committee)
– Art in Lindsborg (Ron and Loren Dauer dba Town and Country Repair)
– Evangelical Covenant Church (members of Evangelical Covenant Church)
– Lindsborg Public Schools (USD 400, Smoky Valley School District)
– Lindsborg’s Boxcar Children (E-M Sand and Gravel and the family of Edward
Opat)
– Trinity United Methodist Church (Norman Malm Memorial)
No better time than autumn to enjoy them.
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– JOHN MARSHALL
