The Trail of Two Cities links Gladwin and Beaverton

For years the eight miles between Gladwin and Beaverton meant the shoulder of a state highway and trusting the traffic. Now there’s a paved path instead. The Trail of Two Cities runs the whole way between the two towns, and on any decent morning you’ll find it busy — joggers, dog walkers, kids on bikes, retirees getting their miles in.

It didn’t appear overnight. A group called the Gladwin County Trails Recreation Authority formed in 2016 to build a non-motorized path with a plain goal: give people a safe, flat place to move. They laid it in stretches over the years, trailhead by trailhead, and the main run between the two cities was finished by the end of 2024. The path is paved, free, open all year, and built to be accessible — wide and smooth enough for a wheelchair or a stroller.

Because it’s paved and stays open through winter, it doesn’t shut down when the snow comes; people just switch to cross-country skis and snowshoes. And because it touches both towns, it’s stitched into the water, too. On the Beaverton end the trail ties into canoe and kayak launches on the Tobacco River — including access near Porter Street and the corner of Porter and M-18 — so you can pedal out and paddle home, or the reverse.

What it really does is shrink the gap between two small towns that used to feel a car-ride apart. You can now leave a Gladwin park, cross most of the county by your own power, and roll into Beaverton without ever merging into highway traffic. For a rural county, that’s a quietly big deal — the kind of everyday infrastructure that gets used hundreds of times a week and rarely makes the news.