Trail project awarded a $60,000 grant from Travel Oregon
Published 7:00 am Thursday, November 30, 2023
- Kleiner
ELGIN — Supporters of the Joseph Branch Trail Consortium have reason to celebrate.
Travel Oregon announced it will award a $60,000 grant to the Joseph Branch Trail Consortium, a nonprofit that is establishing a 63-mile, nonmotorized trail alongside existing railroad tracks between Elgin and Joseph.
Gregg Kleiner, the project coordinator of the Joseph Branch Consortium, said news of the grant was not anticipated.
“It was a great surprise,” he said. “We are very grateful for this grant. I am excited that Travel Oregon wants to support this project.”
Travel Oregon was created by the state about two decades ago to boost tourism. Also known as the Oregon Tourism Commission, it is funded by a state lodging tax, according to the Travel Oregon website.
The Travel Oregon grant will be awarded to help pay for the construction of a trailhead in Wallowa. The trailhead will be the Joseph Branch Trail’s second. The first trailhead was completed in Elgin earlier this year.
The Elgin trailhead is an approximately quarter-acre pocket park. Among its features are a handicapped accessible parking lot, boulders around the site and the base for a gaga ball court. (Gaga ball is a variant of dodgeball.)
Later additions to the Elgin trailhead will include a gazebo to cover a picnic area, a bicycle rack, a bicycle maintenance station and an electric vehicle charging station.
The trailhead in Wallowa will be located on a 3-acre parcel owned by the Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland organization. The trailhead will also be a pocket park and will have similar features to the Elgin site, Kleiner said.
Money from the Travel Oregon grant also will fund upgrades that will make accessible to all people the restrooms and a shower house on the larger, 330-acre Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland site. The larger homeland area is directly across the railroad tracks from where the trailhead and pocket park will be created, Kleiner said.
Kleiner believes the trailhead in Wallowa will encourage more people to visit the town and give the community a boost. He said that now many people drive through Wallowa without stopping on the way to Wallowa Lake.
“It will ultimately help the city of Wallowa,” he said.
Trail work in Elgin and Wallowa on deck
The first portion of the 63-mile trail, extending more than half a mile, will soon be built from the Elgin trailhead to the Elgin city limits. Construction of this portion of the trail, which will have a crushed-rock surface, is expected to be completed by the end of December.
“We want to get it in before the snow flies,” Kleiner said. “We will work around the weather.”
The first portion of the trail in Wallowa will be a 1.08-mile segment within the city. Kleiner said work on the trail should begin in the spring.
He said this will be one of many small segments of the 63-mile trail that will be added one section at a time.
“These sorts of trail-with-rail projects take time to plan, fund and construct, and are often built in short sections that are eventually stitched together to form the longer trail,” he said.
Kleiner said the 63-mile trail, once completed, will be a wonderful plus to Union and Wallowa counties.
“This trail will enable people in both Union and Wallowa counties to safely walk, jog, hike, bicycle and ride horses away from the ever-busier highways and roads,” he said.