Stop #9 Access Katy Trali

The Katy Trail derives its name from the initials of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad which was abbreviated in rail timetables as MKT. Try saying that real fast three times and you’ll find yourself saying, “Katy” before you know it (that’s called eliding, by the way). The trail follows part of the abandoned railbed of the Katy tracks through northeast Oklahoma City and was part of a 2000 rails-to-trails initiative for the Oklahoma City Parks Department.

Although it was the last of the major railroads to build into Oklahoma City, the Katy was the first railroad to traverse Oklahoma when it won the right to build across Indian Territory in 1871. The Katy arrived here in 1903 and built their passenger and freight depots at Walnut and Reno in Bricktown. Today’s Harkins Bricktown Theater is located. From there the rails connected Oklahoma City with the wider MK&T rail network that built extensively in the states listed in its name.

The Katy had two paths through eastern Oklahoma City – one a diagonal route which still has tracks in place, and another that looped around the old Fairgrounds (where Douglass High School is now located). Today’s Katy trail follows the eastern loop near Douglass Park and crosses the old tracks on NE 4 and NE 16. Above NE 16 you’ll ride right alongside the old tracks all the way to the Oklahoma Railroad Museum which is built on a siding near NE 36. As you breeze along the trail, imagine fast moving passenger trains with romantic names like “The Katy Flyer”, the “Bluebonnet” and the “Firefly” zooming along the nearby rails. Above NE 36, the trail leaves the old railroad along Grand Boulevard and into Lincoln Park up to NE 50.

The Katy applied for the right to abandon its rails in 1974 and although it took several years to stop rail service, a trail on the old roadbed was proposed by the Oklahoma Legislature as early as 1975.