The Paul Henry–Thornapple Trail: a railroad that took 170 years to finish

The flattest, straightest walking path in this part of Barry County is flat and straight because it used to carry trains. The Paul Henry–Thornapple Trail runs on the old roadbed of the Grand River Valley Railroad, a line first chartered back in 1846 that then sat dormant for two decades before anyone laid rail. Construction finally got going in 1868, and on the first day of 1870 a locomotive named Muskegon pulled the first train into Grand Rapids over the new grade.

A century and a half later the corridor is doing its second job. When it’s all stitched together the route will stretch roughly 42 miles, from the Grand Rapids side down through Caledonia, Middleville, and Irving toward Vermontville. Through Middleville the trail bends along Thornapple Road, hugging the river the town was named for, then ties into the township paths and Caledonia’s lakeside park as it heads north.

Part of what makes this trail worth a detour is what shares the tread with it. The segment between Irving and Middleville is also a piece of the North Country National Scenic Trail — the 4,800-mile footpath that wanders from North Dakota to Vermont. So a quiet afternoon stroll on a Barry County rail trail is, for a few miles, a step on one of the longest marked trails in the country.

You get the usual rail-trail bargain here: no steep grades, because steam engines couldn’t climb them, and a corridor that cuts through farm fields, woodlots, and river bottom that you’d never see from a road. The crushed-stone surface suits bikes, strollers, and slow walkers alike. It’s the rare case where a railroad abandoned its tracks and the result was better than the railroad.