Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Did you know that the city of Sweet Home has a substantial trail system?
If you don’t, you’re not alone and City Councilor Scott McKee Jr. wants to change that.
McKee, who enjoys the trails, wants people to start taking advantage of the ones that Sweet Home already has and then expand on what’s already available.
He organized the first meeting of a community trails group on Jan. 29, with four others attending.
Two or three interested people were unable to attend, he said.
The group will continue meeting at 7 p.m. on the last Thursday of the month in the hut next to the bandstand at Sankey Park.
Initially, he wants to focus on building public awareness about Sweet Home’s trails, he said, and then he would like to start talking to property owners about opening up new trails and trailheads.
Already available are a trail system in the 63-acre Hobart Wildlife Preserve, at the south end of 35th Avenue, and the old railroad right-of-way, something McKee and Sweet Home Senior Engineering Technician Joe Graybill are calling the South Hills Trail Park, which runs from Sankey Park to a spot past Vista Lane, ending near Highway 228.
The trail, originally the Dollar Railroad, exists intermittently all the way to Holley.
McKee is also interested in restoring the Foster Lake trail, which runs around much of the lake, including a section on the north side from Sunnyside Park west past Gedney Creek.
He expects Linn County Parks Department to help with that trail, he said. “Foster Lake Trail is in their master plan.”
“Trails and pathways and waterways are all part of the trail system,” he said. McKee wants to take into account the needs of kayakers and others who use the rivers in his ideas for developing Sweet Home’s trails.
At this point, he wants to focus on what’s in town and drum up activity, formal and informal.
He is looking to the Lebanon Trails group, which has a goal of building more than 50 miles of trails, for inspiration, he said, and he would like meetings to be held at different locations and host different kinds of events, such as a community family hike or riding bicycles on the South Hills Trail.
He also hopes to organize one-time events with property owner permission for longer walks, such as walking the old railroad to Holley.
As an organized group, there will be more opportunities to develop projects, he said. With an organized group, grant funds become an option.
Events could easily be educational, said Lana Holden, who participated in Thursday night’s meeting. She is a history buff, and she would find it interesting for field trips to focus on local history, along the Dollar Railroad for example. If children enjoy the field trips, they might inspire their parents to take the same walks and increase usage of the trails.
Projects might include interpretative signs along trails providing information about history, local plant and animal species and more, McKee said.
For more information, contact McKee at 367-4535 or e-mail him at [email protected].
The group is seeking input and ideas from the community.
It will meet next at 7 p.m. on Feb. 26 in the Sankey Park hut.