A DOCUMENTARY FILM · CLASSROOM GUIDE

THE TRAIL STATE

How a flooded railroad became the longest developed rail-trail in the United States, and what that took from four decades of Missourians.

How to use this guide

The film runs long enough to need two sittings for most classes. This guide splits it in half, with a short discussion between. Each lesson below stands on its own, so you can take one and leave the rest. Timecodes for the two halves ship with the screening file.

Three of the four lessons need nothing but the film and a discussion. The fourth is a research project that runs a week and produces something the class can send back to us for the public map.

Standards: the material aligns with Missouri Learning Standards in social studies (geographic study, governance systems, economic concepts) and in English language arts (analysis of informational and multimedia sources, research and presentation). Specific grade-level codes are listed in the version we send on request, since they differ by course.

Before you watch

Put one question on the board and leave it there for both periods:

When something that served the public stops being useful in its old form, who decides what happens to it next?

Vocabulary to pre-teach:

• Rail corridor — the continuous strip of land a railroad runs on, often assembled parcel by parcel over decades.
• Abandonment — the legal end of a rail line, after which the corridor can break apart among adjacent landowners.
• Railbanking — a federal arrangement that preserves a corridor intact for possible future rail use while allowing it to be used as a trail in the meantime.
• Easement — a right to use land you do not own, for a specific purpose.
• Rail-trail — a public trail built on a former rail corridor.

Lesson 1 · The line before the trail

ONE CLASS PERIOD · GEOGRAPHY AND ECONOMICS

Objective: Students explain why the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad followed the river valley it did, what it carried, and which towns depended on it.

Do this: Open the interactive map at thetrailstate.org and zoom to the stretch between Boonville and St. Charles. Ask students to describe the shape of the line before you tell them anything about it. They will notice it hugs the river and avoids the bluffs. Ask why a railroad would accept the flood risk to get the flat grade.

Discussion:

• Which of the towns on the map exist because of the railroad, and which existed before it?
• What did a depot mean to a town of four hundred people in 1900? What replaced it?
• The 1986 flood was the end of the line, but freight had been leaving for years. What else was pulling business away?

Exit ticket: In three sentences, explain to someone who has never been to Missouri why the trail is flat.

Lesson 2 · Railbanking, explained

ONE CLASS PERIOD · GOVERNMENT AND LAW

Objective: Students describe how a federal mechanism kept a 200-mile corridor from dissolving into hundreds of private parcels, and identify who gains and who objects.

Background for the teacher: Congress amended the National Trails System Act in 1983 to allow railbanking. Without it, an abandoned corridor typically reverts to adjacent landowners, and a continuous public path becomes impossible: one holdout in the middle ends the trail. Railbanking has been contested in court by landowners who argue it takes property rights, and those cases are worth naming honestly in class.

Structured discussion. Split the room into four positions and give each five minutes to argue: a farmer whose land borders the corridor, a mayor of a town of 300, a cyclist from Kansas City, a state parks manager with a fixed budget.

• What does each of them actually want, in one sentence?
• Which two positions are easiest to reconcile? Which two are not?
• Is there a version of this where nobody loses anything? If not, who should absorb the loss, and why?

Extension: The Rock Island corridor is going through this process right now, and it is not finished. Have students find the current status of one Rock Island town and report back.

Lesson 3 · Who pays for public land

ONE CLASS PERIOD · CIVICS AND ECONOMICS

Objective: Students trace the mix of private gift, state budget, federal grant, and volunteer labor behind a public trail, and evaluate what each source can and cannot do.

Do this: On the board, build a column for each funding source the film mentions. A private gift from Ted and Pat Jones made the original purchase possible. State parks money maintains it. Federal recreational trails grants pay for specific segments. Local volunteers and small nonprofits fill the gaps, town by town.

Then ask:

• Which of these sources is reliable year over year? Which can disappear with one election or one donor?
• A trail costs money every year after it opens. Who is responsible for that, and does anyone vote on it?
• If your town wanted a mile of trail, what would you actually have to do first?

Writing task: One page, addressed to a real decision-maker: a county commissioner, a state representative, a parks director. Make a case for or against spending public money on a trail in your county. Cite two specifics from the film.

Project · Map your own mile

ONE WEEK · RESEARCH, INTERVIEW, PRESENTATION

Each student or pair adopts one town or one mile of the Katy or the Rock Island, and builds a short profile of it. The class assembles the profiles into a single map. Good ones can be sent to us, and we will add them to the public map with the school credited.

Each profile needs:

1. The town's population now and at its peak, with the source for both.
2. What the railroad carried in and out of it.
3. One photograph, historic or current, with a caption and a credit.
4. One interview: a shop owner, a long-time resident, a trail volunteer, a relative. Five questions, written down first.
5. One thing a rider should stop for, and one thing that is gone.

Where to look

• Missouri State Parks, for trail history, trailhead details, and current closures.
• The State Historical Society of Missouri, for newspapers, photographs, and county records.
• Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, for how railbanking works nationally.
• Your county historical society or public library, which is where the interviews usually start.
• The interactive map at thetrailstate.org, for stops, mileages, and trail status.

Planning a field trip? Most trailheads have parking, restrooms, and a flat surface suitable for all riders and walkers. Missouri State Parks can advise on group size and current conditions. If you take the class out, tell us where you went.