By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
The Slippery Elm Trail got a facelift this year, and the Wood County Park District showed off the new look on Saturday with three ceremonial ribbon cuttings.
The first ribbon was cut at North Baltimore’s East Broadway parking lot on the south end of the 13-mile trail. The second ribbon was cut at Bowling Green’s Montessori School on the north end of the trail.
The final ribbon, at the Rudolph Bike Park in the middle of the trail, was the joined ribbons from the two other locations, tied together by park board member Kathy Atwood.
“The ribbon represents the ability for the Slippery Elm Trail to connect our communities along its 13 miles,” said Christopher Smalley, park district executive director. “Everyone has their own section of trail that they love and care for. What we’re going to do now is we’ll string the reunified ribbon across the trail and have one final cutting ceremony. And with that, we will have completed this many-year project.”
The Slippery Elm Trail, built on the former CSX rail corridor between Bowling Green and North Baltimore, officially opened in October of 1995.
“This started out as a vision for the Park District back in 1995 through the leadership of (former director) Andrew Kalmar and some other folks that are no longer with the Park District,” Smalley said.
The trail has become the park district’s most used park, averaging 275 users per day, “which is tremendous,” he sa
Two years ago, the park district applied for an Ohio Department of Transportation grant geared toward building and refurbishing bike trails. The application was successful, and in spring 2025, the district was awarded just over $1.1 million to repave the trail.
“Before this summer, 1995 was the first and only time that this trail was paved,” reported now Assistant Director Andrew Kalmar at the Bowling Green ribbon cutting. “Our pavement held up really well for 31 years.”
There were many thank-yous throughout the ceremonies, including current and former legislators who put in a good word when the park district applied for an Ohio Department of Transportation grant; ODOT officials who helped them through the grant process; Gerken Paving of Napoleon for their efficient and quality work paving the trail; and to all of the park district staff, from the operations staff who trimmed trees along the entire route and are now reinstalling all of the benches, to the police, programming and marketing staff for their roles in the project.
Special thanks were given to Wood County Engineer John Musteric for the work he and his staff did to help with the project. He received a Slippery Elm 30th anniversary T-shirt and learned a bench in honor of him and his staff would be added to the trail.
“Because of his guidance, leadership, and dedication to public service, he helped us tremendously to get this job done,” Kalmar said.
Musteric’s staff helped with the preliminary pavement analysis a few years ago, inspecting for the first time the nine bridges that are part of the trail. He agreed to provide the plans for the project and to help with the ODOT process from bidding through completion. And as the project wrapped up, the engineer’s sign staff helped put up all the new traffic signs along the trail.
“I believe county agencies should help county agencies,” Musteric said about his office’s involvement in the project. “If we have the personnel and if we have the technology, we will help wherever we can. Personnel, drawings, inspection, whatever is needed. We just enjoy working together.”
The trail is a bike and multi-use trail, but it is also a 13-mile-long road, Kalmar said. Because of that, ‘there are a lot of similarities to what the engineer’s office does.”
“It’s probably one of the better roads,” Musteric said. “This used to be a railroad, so the ground is pretty compacted. So over the years, there were very few repairs needed” on the trail.
At the Bowling Green ribbon cutting, Mayor Mike Aspacher thanked the park district for its continued investment in the Slippery Elm Trail.
“As city leaders, we spend a lot of time talking about those community amenities that make Bowling Green a great place to live, to raise your children, to run a business or go to school. This is one of them,” he said. “This is an example of ways that we can utilize complete street concepts to safely implement access to our streets for transportation and recreation for all of our residents.”
Smalley’s final thank you was to the citizens of Wood County. “This would not happen without their support. We have such a treasure in our own backyard and in many backyards, and it’s only made possible through the citizens of Wood County.”
