What just months ago was a thorny tangle of overgrown underbrush sprawled along the banks of Yankton's Marne Creek has been transformed into a safe, recreational connection to many community points of interest, like Riverside Park and Yankton High School Summit Activities Center.
What is now called the Auld-Brokaw Trail was a trail formed by a flood mitigation project through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. With federal funds, a trail was built that would allow access to Marne Creek for upkeep purposes, and the parts of the trail that are below certain elevation and likely to flood again were corrected.
Developing the trail became a community project, and two large donations from Tom and Meredith (Auld) Brokaw, both Yankton natives, were the finishing touch. Almost all of the funding is in place for the trail to be completely hard-surfaced and benches, lighting, waste receptacles and landscaping to be installed.
The city has negotiated with landowners all along the trail in order to create what
they have called a 50-foot linear park.
The contributions by the Brokaw family were well received by those who have been working hard to raise the funds for the trail.
"The Brokaws obviously are giving Yankton a vote of confidence," said Kathie Gerstner, who co-chairs the Auld-Brokaw Trail fund-raising committee with Jim Nyberg.
"The Auld-Brokaw project committee has worked hard in securing funds from a variety of sources, and we feel that the Brokaws knew we were working hard toward fulfilling the dream of this trail." Nyberg said they were thrilled with the Brokaws' contribution to the project.
"I think it will exceed our expectationsŠ" The committe already had $650,612 of the $908,000 needed for the project on hand in the form of donations, pledges and an allocation from the city when Yankton City Manager Eric Swanson announced that an $80,000 grant for the project had come through.
The $80,000 grant, given by Governor Bill Janklow, had been a project of District III Planning and Development and the city's Parks and Recreation Department.
The additional donation from the Brokaws, who had already given an initial $250,000 for the project, has pushed the trail even closer to becoming a reality.
"You add these funds together, plus the generous donations we are receiving from the community of Yankton, we're going to be able to provide additional amentities," said Gerstner.
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