Towns celebrating completion of Inland Trail section

By: 
Larry Limpf

Ribbon-cutting ceremonies are scheduled for April 22 to mark the completion of the Elmore-Genoa leg of the North Coast Inland Trail.
Mayor Rick Claar of Elmore will host a ceremony at 6 p.m. on the south end of the Portage River Bridge and Tom Bergman, mayor of Genoa, will hold a ceremony in his village at 7 p.m. at Veterans Park.
The section of the trail stretches about 3.82 miles over abandoned rail lines and cost about $2.4 million to complete.
Members of the Ottawa County Park District and the county commissioners have been invited to attend the ceremonies, Claar said, as well as members of the village councils.
He credited the commissioners for leading the effort to secure funding for the trail.
Mayor Bergman said Genoa officials plan to re-install a railroad mile marker from the 19th century at the site of the ribbon-cutting.
“The effort to get the North Coast Inland Trail to Genoa started in the 1980s, so this ribbon cutting is really the culmination of more than 30 plus years of work,” he said. Members of the Genoa Area Chamber of Commerce have also been invited to the ribbon-cutting.
In his remarks, he will discuss the historical importance of the rail line that is the backbone of the trail and how the operators of the rail system in the 1850s almost chose a different route for the Cleveland to Toledo line.
In 2017, the villages of Genoa and Elmore, the Ottawa County Community Improvement Corporation, and the county commissioners submitted an application to fund the continuation of the trail from Elmore to Genoa.
The Ohio Department of Transportation has informed Mike Timmons, mayor of Millbury, it is working on funding for acquiring property to complete a Genoa-to-Millbury leg of the trail.
He said he was taking part in a virtual meeting with ODOT and Toledo Metropolitan Area Council Of Governments to discuss improvements to the State Rt. 795 corridor recently when an ODOT official told him there could be grant money available for purchasing property.

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