A newcomer’s idea grows into River’s Edge Trail
Chuck and Gerry Jennings came to Great Falls in 1974 when he had an opportunity to practice orthopedic surgery.
The city is similar in the size to his hometown of Hutchinson, Kan.
“To me it was Kansas with mountains,” Chuck said.
The couple came to Great Falls as active outdoors people at a time when the national Rails to Trails movement was in its infancy.
They regularly rode their bikes through town and sometimes with their children. They rode over the Warden Bridge and other routes through town.
“We knew it was dangerous, but we didn’t want to give up riding,” Gerry said.
Chuck and Gerry were bicycling on Lower River Road one day without their kids. Chuck was riding in front of Gerry and she witnessed a near crash involving Chuck, a van, a motorcycle and a loose dog.
“I could just imagine Chuck getting hit,” Gerry said.
After that, Gerry remembers thinking, “We have got to do something in this town to make biking safer.”
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At the time, Chuck said, “Great Falls was bike averse.”
The city started adding bike routes in the 1980s, with the first route along Fourth Avenue North, according to city records.
Chuck had always had his eye on the old railroad routes through town, and when the old rail bridge on 6th Street North between River and Park drives came down, it created a break in one often-used bike route.
By then the city had gone through the Vision 2000 community planning process and a committee had formed to establish what is now the River’s Edge Trail.
The committee held its first meeting April 23, 1990, and the members present included Chuck Jennings, Howard Strause, John Swanberg, Jackie Nortman, Brin Grosfield, Michael Luckett, Shelly Addison, Barb Teberg, Bill Tacke and Sheila Conners. The minutes include discussion of developing a master plan for bike trails in Great Falls.
The group approached Burlington Northern about replacing the bridge to make an urban trail. The bridge was replaced in late 1990.
The metal bridge, which was first put in place in 1914, had been stored for nearly a decade at an old meat packing plant east of Great Falls, according to Tribune archives.
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Burlington Northern donated the bridge and volunteers moved and installed it. The Great Falls Home Builders Association donated the reinforced concrete deck and railing.
It was the first piece of the trail.
“Without it, it never would have started,” Gerry said.
Initially dubbed the Riverfront Recreational Corridor, the trail was to extend seven miles from the Broadwater Bay area downstream to Rainbow Falls.
Much of the trail has been constructed on abandoned railroad and road rights-of-way and structures. Miles of new trail connecting these segments have been constructed, as have many new tunnels, underpasses, bridges and trailheads. Volunteers have undertaken an ongoing intensive cleanup of riverfront land that had been littered with debris over the past decades, and have spent thousands of hours on weed control, tree planting, maintenance and enhancement projects, according to the River’s Edge Trail Foundation.
In January 1991, a name the trail contest was announced, and by February 1991, more than 400 area residents had responded and 220 name ideas were submitted in addition to the six names proposed by the trails committee.
Gerry said the naming contest was important to the early days of the trail because it got the community involved and energized.
By that time Doug Wicks had emerged as spokesman for the committee.
Wicks was a cyclist and Brin Grosfield, owner of the Knicker Biker, suggested that he become involved with the committee, Chuck said.
“I think that was the last biking he did,” Gerry joked. Wicks was so busy working on building and expanding the trail, there was little time for biking.
The first trail newsletter went out in the spring of 1991 and has continued ever since. The newsletters update the community on accomplishments of the past year and goals for the next year.
“He was just constant in his efforts,” Gerry said of Wicks. “His passion for this project was just boundless.”
For years, Chuck was president of Recreations Trails Inc., which grew out of the Vision 2000 trails committee, but he said Wicks was a tremendous asset who was persistent in his trail efforts.
RTI has since changed its name to the River’s Edge Trail Foundation and Chuck remains on the board.
Despite the enthusiasm for the trail in the early days, it didn’t come without its own controversy.
Chuck remembers a Tribune letter to the editor in the early days asking why the city would spend money on a trail when there were potholes to be fixed. One of the suggested names in the 1991 contest was “Money Down the River Trail.”
By 1996, the city received a planning award for the trail from the American Planning Association.
“River’s Edge Trail is a model for other small communities because it shows how you can get things done,” wrote award juror Bonnie Harpore-Lore in the APA magazine in April 1996. She was a landscape architect for the Federal Highway Administration.
Andrew Finch, senior transportation planner for Great Falls, said the River’s Edge Trail was the first urban trail system in Montana.
“We were the envy of the state,” he said. “Everyone pointed to Great Falls as a city that built an urban trail system, and if Great Falls can do it, why can’t we?”
It started as the first Rails to Trails project in Montana and has since grown far beyond that. Other Montana cities looked to Great Falls as they were developing urban trail systems of their own, Finch said.
The upcoming goals are to maintain a relationship with Preservation Cascade to eventually connect the trail over the historic 10th Street Bridge, Chuck said.
There are also extensions of the trail for unpaved biking and places for hiking.
“You don’t have to go hours out of Great Falls to go hiking,” Gerry said.
Going forward, the foundation will also focus on maintaining the trail for future generations of Great Falls residents to enjoy, Gerry said.
In his time working on the trail and since his retirement late last year, community members have raved about Wicks’ efforts to develop the trail and hope his legacy is continued.
Jolene Bach of Great Falls Development Authority said the trail wouldn’t be where it is today without Wicks.
“Doug Wicks has done an incredible job for our community. We owe him both our gratitude and commitment to carry this work forward,” Bach said. “I’m excited to see what the next few years will bring for our River’s Edge Trail.”
Things are changing for the trail foundation and the trail this year.
Mixed in with all the energy and excitement for the future of the trail, no one is forgetting the role Wicks has played in the trail’s development.
“We’re still trying to get our heads around all the work that Doug did,” said Sheila Kelly, a foundation board member. “ A lot wouldn’t have happened without Doug Wicks.”
John Juras was a member of the committee that selected the name of the trail and is now president of the RET Foundation.
“It’s amazing to think that we can do it,” Juras said. “We have visions and we’re trying to make it happen. This is exactly what Doug did for the last 25 years. He thought ahead and always had a foot in the door whenever there was an opportunity and that’s the role the foundation will continue to play.”