REGIONAL—Slowly but surely, the missing pieces of the Mesabi Trail are beginning to fall into place. And a $2.26 million grant from the Legislative and Citizens Commission on Minnesota Resources, or LCCMR, should help in that ongoing effort.

The grant was one of the survivors of a tough House committee hearing last week, according District 3A Rep. Rob Ecklund.

The funds, assuming they survive a legislative conference committee later this year and are approved by the governor, will help complete two separate sections of trail. According to trail director Bob Manzoline, the funds will fill in the long-standing “missing link” between Gilbert and Biwabik as well as extend the paved trail from its current terminus on Hwy. 135, north of Aurora, to the vicinity of the Timber Hall on County Road 21, in “downtown” Embarrass.

From there, an earlier grant of just over $1 million from the state’s Legacy fund is expected to fund extension of the trail north up the former railroad grade as far as Wahlsten Road, about five miles south of Tower.

Meanwhile, Manzoline reports significant progress to the east of Tower, where work is progressing on at least four different segments. Trail officials have already awarded the contract to build a mile-long trail connection from Soudan to the several miles-long segment of the trail already completed in the new Lake Vermilion Soudan Underground Mine State Park. That work, awarded to Mesabi Bituminous, should be completed by June, according to Manzoline.

At the same time, trail officials are in the construction phase of another eight-mile long segment from the Eagles Nest Town Hall to the Hwy. 169 railroad overpass near the intersection with Boundary Road W. From there, trail officials are still trying to fill a roughly $500,000 funding gap to extend the trail to County Road 88.

“That stretch is coming along,” said Manzoline. “We’re working on getting easements up to County 88,” he said. “The big missing piece will be between the state park and the Eagles Nest Town Hall,” said Manzoline. That section will fill in once the new Hwy. 169 realignment is completed, since the trail will be routed onto the existing highway right-of-way for much of that stretch. “We’re getting there,” said Manzoline. “Things are starting to happen kind of quickly.”

As for the remaining section, from County Road 88 to Ely, trail officials are still negotiating easements and will be applying for funding once those are in place.