Improving Infrastructure Across the “Bike Shop Desert”
trail. What once was a weighing station in Newport now serves as a 24/7 pool hall and snack bar to passersby, all on the honor system. Farther east, you’ll find the only brick depot still standing in O’Neill, now refurbished and serving as the Holt County Economic Develop- ment office. And agribusiness is omnipresent. From an open window on the third story of the Neligh Mill, you can listen to the nearby Elkhorn waters that powered the production of 98,000 pounds of flour a day during the Progressive Era. In nearby Laurel Hill Cemetery, you can join countless residents and visitors who have paid respects to White Buffalo Girl, an infant who died in the area of pneumonia soon after the U.S. government forced the Ponca Tribe from their nearby land to present-day Oklahoma (read “The Legacy of White Buffalo Girl,” at rtc.li/white- buffalo-girl). Her parents were allowed only a brief ceremony to grieve; her father, Black Elk, asked Neligh’s residents to look after his daughter’s grave as though it belonged to a child of their own. It is sure to be adorned with flowers and other offerings when you visit. Seeing the connective value of the former Chicago & North Western railroad, Rails to Trails Conservancy purchased it in 1994 for $6.2 million and handed the deed over to the State of Nebraska. Once completed, it will become the longest path along the cross- country Great American Rail-Trail ® (greatamericanrailtrail.org). Cur- rently, the Cowboy Trail runs gener- ally alongside U.S. highways 275 and 20. It’s uninterrupted from Norfolk to Valentine for 202 miles, save for a detour in Oakdale around a bridge approach lost to the cata- strophic floods of 2019 (read “From Recovery to Resilience” at rtc.li/
Game and Parks Commission (outdoornebraska.gov), which maintains the trail. “And frankly, I think doing that via the Cowboy Trail by bike or by horse or by walking is the kind of speed you need to be at in order to really see and experience those differences. You just don’t see that kind of stuff when you’re traveling at 65 miles an hour.” Celebrating 30 Years This year, as one of numerous efforts tied to the 30th anniver- sary celebration of the Cowboy Trail, Nebraska Game and Parks published a Cowboy Trail Field Guide designed to help trail users not only know what fauna and flora to look for across its respec - tive regions—burrowing owls and swift foxes in the shortgrass; pronghorn and sand milkweed in the Sandhills—but also to help build closer connections with the trail. Duryea celebrated the guide’s launch by inviting people to take a full-moon evening hike on June 11 and stargaze above a bend in the Elkhorn River along the Broken Bridge a little west of Norfolk. “We had about 100 people, and it was really nice,” Duryea said. Once completed, the Cowboy Trail will span 30 rural Nebraska communities, from Ta-Ha-Zouka Park in Norfolk to just outside of Chadron. Along with bringing us- ers closer to northern Nebraska’s natural beauty, it connects the region’s present and past. In Long Pine, you can breathe in forest terpenes from atop the trail’s second-tallest bridge and also bunk for the night in the former railroad barracks just down the
Part of the allure of the Cowboy Trail is finding community and beauty where others aren’t looking. But good luck finding a replacement derailleur. “You’ve heard of a food desert,” said Julie Harris, executive director of Bike Walk Nebraska (bikewalknebraska.org). “We have a bike shop desert.” Norfolk Bike, near the trail’s eastern terminus, is the only one around. In 2022, Bike Walk Nebraska established the Cowboy Trail Coalition to seek funding and development opportunities for more miles, to promote economic development and safer passage via trails, and to help water the desert. Harris said they help communities find grants for bike fix-it stations, or provide them directly, when they partner on the kinds of projects that trail towns prioritize. Chadron, Valentine, Neligh and Norfolk are among the communities that have bought in, she said. On her wish list: Developing a partnership between local auto parts stores and a bike part distributor, so if a cyclist broke down in, say, Bassett, she could get the missing piece quickly shipped there. But first, more fix-it stations. When we spoke, Bike Walk Nebraska was gearing up for a fundraiser with the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission in Valentine to install bike fix-it stations and make trailhead improvements there, part of the Cowboy Trail’s 30th anniversary celebrations. “We recognize the diamond in the rough that [this trail is] for bicycle tourism and for the communities along the trail,” Harris said.
PHOTOS: This page and opposite page: Cowboy Recreation and Nature Trail | Jonathan Egan (2).
Rails to Trails MAGAZINE | FALL 2025
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