BEATRICE – The project won’t be bid until 2026, but the City of Beatrice has now approved the plan for a trail that would connect Riverside Park in the west part of the city with the Homestead National Historical Park, four miles west of Beatrice….ending at Southwest 75th Road.

It is receiving a transportation enhancement program grant through the State of Nebraska.


"Engineers had drawn most of the trail on private property and both the Homestead and the City of Beatrice had expressed their displeasure with that...this is not what we signed up for, this is not what we asked them to do. Olsson's is the engineer on the plan, on the project, so they went back and worked it. In the design that's before you now, the majority of the trail is now on public right-of-way. We went from having about six acres of ground that was on private property, to now we're down to less than half an acre."


City Administrator Tobias Tempelmeyer says actual construction of the trail is projected for 2027. It would run mostly in public right-of-way along the south side of Nebraska Highway Four.

The Beatrice City Council approved the redesign, Monday night.