The Shooting Star State Trail

Making connections in southern Minnesota

by Jan Lasar

Gerald Meier cuts the ribbon at the October 2019 connection of the Shooting Star Trail into Austin, MN. All photos by Jan Lasar

“It’s been a long time. Here it goes!” Gerald Meier of the Prairie Visions group said and cut the ribbon to officially open the Shooting Star Trail’s link into Austin, MN. At the end of October last year a small crowd gathered near the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center to celebrate the realization of what’s been the dream of a handful of local residents in the southern Minnesota towns of LeRoy, Taopi, Adams, Rose Creek, Lyle and Austin. Meier has been part of Prairie Visions since 1993 and credits Mower County, the DNR and countless private individuals with the success of the project. “We had lots and lots of help, it was an unbelievable amount of people that helped”, he said. Although somewhat delayed from the group’s original estimates, he’s happy to see his years of volunteerism come to fruition. “We planned on being up here [in Austin] by 1995,” he said and chuckled.

There were cheers from the crowd when the two ends of the cut ribbon fell on the freshly paved trail.

Among those celebrating was Nancy Schnable, Executive Director of Discover Austin, the city’s Convention and Visitors Bureau. “This really opens up a gateway for us to be able to connect our 15 miles of city trails to the Shooting Star State Trail,” she said. With the new extension added, the trail is now almost 30 miles long. It extends from Lake Louise State Park to Austin’s doorstep, just south of the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center, where it joins Austin’s network of city trails on the north side of I-90. Schnable hopes the resulting 45 miles of trail will be an attraction to locals and provide a boost for tourism in Southern Minnesota.

The same goes for the Friends of the Shooting Star Trail. Sharon Jacobson, president of the group and member of the Friends of Lake Louise State Park, says they have been working tirelessly to promote the communities along the trail corridor since the beginning. Their signature event, the Shooting Star Trail Ride will be in its 22nd year in 2020. At first, locals were skeptical of the idea of turning an abandoned railroad grade into a recreational trail. She said the initial reaction was “Why would anyone come ride here and see corn and soybeans?” Now that the trail is almost complete it turns out that “People from the Cities like to see corn and soybeans, instead of skyscrapers and cars,” she said. And since the launch of a bike rental program in June of 2019 she’s also seen an increase in trail use by locals who like to connect with the outdoors.

The annual ride draws up to 200 people to the towns of Rose Creek, Taopi, LeRoy, Adams and Austin and offers ride choices of 20 to 70 miles. The shorter routes are trail only while the longer ones explore the quiet country roads of the area. In 2020, new routes will take riders down Iowa’s Wapsi-Great Western Trail as well. “Ride volunteers are increasingly hard to come by these days,” she said, and credited the roughly 20 locals who help with rest stops and route planning with the event’s success. Some, like Jerry Utz from LeRoy, MN have been volunteering their time for 20 years. He enjoys meeting riders at the rest stop, finding out where they’re from and striking up a conversation. “I think there may be a 90-year old on this ride today, but I haven’t seen him come through, yet,” he said. He continues to help out with the ride because he feels small towns need to be promoted to continue to thrive. “It’s good for all the communities,” he said.

Trail shelter built in the style of a Norwegian church near Adams, MN

While the trail has become an asset to the towns it connects, it also draws in leisure travelers in search of a getaway.

Elaine Manovich from Hastings, MN and her friend, Sue Niebur, from Miesville, MN were fueling up for the last leg of their ride at the Leroy stop. After riding in other events like the MS TRAM, they decided to give the Shooting Star Trail Ride a try. They both liked the route and scenery. “There were nice, rolling hills, no real climbers,” Niebur said. Manovich had praise for the rest stops. “They had great snacks and some nutritional things I’ve never heard of before,” she said. They both enjoyed seeing churches, graveyards and farms on the way while they kept an eye out for barn quilts, decorative panels on farm buildings.

Even 27 years after its inception, the Shooting Star State Trail is not complete, as far as the Master Plan is concerned. The last leg of the project calls for it to drop south another ten miles or so, from Austin to the town of Lyle on the Minnesota-Iowa border. While a timeline for this last part has not been established, another extension has the potential to become a reality much sooner. From near Taopi, a four-mile leg will extend to the Minnesota-Iowa border and connect to the Wapsi-Great Western Line Trail. This 27-mile paved trail travels southeast from the state border into Elma, IA. Together with Austin’s city trails, the resulting network will be nearly 72 miles long. The Wapsi Trail is already extended to the state line and on both sides of the border people are ready to turn to this new project and link the two trails together. At a reception after the ribbon cutting, Elaine Govern of the Wapsi Trail group said, “We welcome you.”

Note: Due to the uncertainties the COVID-19 pandemic has brought, the 2020 Shooting Star Trail Ride has been rescheduled for June 19, 2021.

Parts of the Shooting Star State Trail are built on an abandoned railroad corridor which once served southern Minnesota agricultural communities.