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Recently, the Vinton (Iowa) Parks and Recreation Department completed a new two-mile paved trail. In most normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be newsworthy. However, this project required a massive leap of faith from a park and recreation department director and a city council to bank on an out-of-this-world idea to create a sustainable recreation amenity and economic driver for a small town in rural Iowa, all while honoring the legacy of a community leader gone too early. Today, that idea has been realized as Nathan’s Miles Trail.
In 2018, the Vinton Parks and Recreation Department began efforts to increase the available trail network for a growing rural community. In beginning this journey, the department revisited old master plans and a previous relationship with engineering firm Shive-Hattery in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. What was born out of these design meetings was the idea to finish an old trail that just stopped in the middle of nowhere by finishing it and making it a loop.
An inspiration for the new trail design was Nathan Hesson, who served on the Vinton City Council for five years and was always seen around town smiling from ear to ear. Hesson lived with a rare genetic disorder, called Loeys-Dietz syndrome, which enlarges the aorta in the heart and causes blood vessels to not contract the way they are supposed to. In January 2021, the disease caused Hesson to have strokes, brain bleeds and, eventually, heart failure. He succumbed to this ravaging disease at the age of 37, leaving behind a wife and two beautiful children.
Though Hesson could never take long walks or bike rides in parks, he was instrumental in creating off-road trails in Vinton through his work and partnership with the Vinton Off Road Cyclists group. He was a supporter of all things parks and recreation in the community and served as the director of our department. I can personally say he was a joy to work with day in and day out. Ultimately, he was the biggest champion for what would become Nathan’s Miles Trail.
After approving the construction of the trail in fall of 2019, we began discussing how we could make this trail stand out from the abundance of trails that exist in the Cedar Valley Corridor. I remembered seeing the use of glow-in-the-dark aggregate stone in Europe to help pedestrians see where they are going at night. It was used in small areas, but the appearance it gave was mesmerizing. Our department was able to locate a dealer of that stone out of Canada, called Ambient Glow Technology, which produces a glow-in-the-dark aggregate that is powered entirely by solar energy. It takes 15 minutes of sunlight to light our trail for 15 hours a night and the stone is warrantied to last 20 years.
We are now the proud owners of the longest glow-in-the-dark trail in the United States, and we are currently waiting to hear back from Guinness on our submission for a world record. We have seen visitors from 10 different states and countless cities in Iowa over the short time we have been open.
Even though Hesson did not live long enough to see the finished product, we know the trail glows brighter because he is looking down on it.
Matt Boggess, Director of Parks and Recreation for City of Vinton, Iowa