The Trail State← Back to the film

Resources

Everything else you might need.

Files for press and programmers, a way to bring the film to your town, and an open archive for the people who were there.

Press & media kit

Free to use for coverage of the film. Credit as noted.

Short logline

A flooded rail line, a stubborn state, and the 237 miles of trail that came out of it.

Long synopsis

When the 1986 flood finished off the old MKT railroad, Missouri could have sold the corridor off in pieces. Instead a donation from Ted and Pat Jones, a fight in the legislature, and forty years of town-by-town work turned it into the longest developed rail-trail in the country. The Trail State follows that corridor from Machens to Clinton, and picks up the Rock Island where the story is still being written.

Credits & broadcast

A Filmanthropic project from STL.org, with Magnificent Missouri.

Directed by
Chris Ryan
Executive producers
Dan Burkhardt, Zach Tucker, Chris Ryan
Produced by
Once Films
Cinematography & editing
Once Films
Runtime
56 min · HD · color · 2026

Premieres September 2026. Nine PBS broadcast October 12, 7 PM.

Press contact →

Downloads

Official posterPNG · 2:3 · print and webGet →Wordmark, redPNG · transparentGet →Wordmark, creamPNG · transparent · for dark backgroundsGet →Still: Treloar elevatorJPG · credit Magnificent MissouriGet →Still: river fog at the bluffsJPGGet →Still: Hartsburg from the airJPGGet →

Need broadcast-res files, the trailer as a download, or an interview? Use the press contact.

Host a screening

Theaters, libraries, trail towns, bike clubs, company all-hands. If you can get people in a room, we can get you the film.

We send

  • The film as a screening file or DCP
  • Poster art and a printable window flier
  • Social graphics and a short blurb for your newsletter
  • A filmmaker for Q&A when the calendar allows

You bring

  • A room, a projector, and sound
  • A date at least three weeks out
  • Someone to open the doors and count heads
  • Optional but encouraged: a group ride to the venue
Request a date →

Tell us your Katy story

The trail turned 40 this year. The people who fought for it, graded it, and rode it the first summer are still here, and most of that history has never been written down anywhere.

Send us a memory, a photograph, a shop that closed, a mile that means something. We are collecting it by town and adding the best of it to the map.

Photos and scans welcome once we write back.

Trail town poster

Print it, tape it in the window. Cafés, bike shops, libraries, trailhead kiosks, the bulletin board at the co-op.

Tabloid and letter sizes, black-and-white friendly, with a blank line for your screening date.

Download poster art →

Print-ready PDF versions land with the September rollout.

The Trail State film poster

Educator guide

Built for grades 6 through 12, and short enough to fit a single class period with the film in two parts.

LESSON 1 · GEOGRAPHY

The line before the trail

Why the MKT followed the river, what it carried, and which towns it made. Ends with a three-sentence exit ticket.

LESSON 2 · GOVERNMENT

Railbanking, explained

The 1983 federal mechanism that kept the corridor whole, argued from four positions including the landowner who objects.

LESSON 3 · CIVICS

Who pays for public land

Private gift, state budget, federal grant, volunteer labor. Ends with a one-page letter to a real decision-maker.

PROJECT · ONE WEEK

Map your own mile

Students adopt a town, interview someone who remembers it, and build a profile. Rubric included. Good ones go on the public map.

Read the full guide →Ask for the standards-coded version

Free to copy and share for classroom use. The guide prints straight from the page. Tell us your course and we will send the version with the matching Missouri Learning Standards codes.