With the start of its trailhead art project and the recent ribbon cutting for the trailhead bathrooms, Dallas Center is satisfying what the Roman poet Horace once said good things should be: utile et dulce, that is useful and beautiful.
No one disputes the usefulness of seeing porcelain facilities placed discreetly along the Raccoon River Valley Trail, and the new Dallas Center comfort station is a model of its kind, the result of the city’s yearlong fundraising campaign that included an $18,200 grant from the Dallas County Foundation, a grant of $75,000 from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ Resource Enhancement and Protection (REAP) program and generous donations from Wellmark BCBS, Delta Dental, MidAmerican Energy and the local Burnett Charitable Trust.
A ribbon cutting ceremony was held at the new trail restrooms Oct. 17, with Dallas Center Mayor Michael Kidd, Dallas Center City Council member Curt Pion and Dallas Center Parks and Recreation Board member Bob King all praising the collaborative efforts that brought the new restrooms to be.
The facility was fully operational in time for the Dallas Center Fall Festival, Aug. 25-26, and King explained to the ribbon-cutting attendees the restrooms’ efficient water usage and other pleasant features.
A mere 10 feet separate the useful and beautiful at the Dallas Center trailhead. The Dallas Center City Council voted in August to participate in the trail art design supplied by RDG Planning and Design Dahlquist Art Studio and based on the art of the Waukee trailhead.
The trail-wide art motif — called In the Shadow of the Rails — is intended to create a “common theme” and a “cultural corridor” for the 89-mile RRVT, with elements of the Waukee design repeated in many of the trail’s 13 towns, according to longtime RRVT promoter Chuck Offenburger.
Jim Miller, a strong supporter of the Waukee Trailhead artwork and a member of the Raccoon River Valley Trail Association, emphasized the scale and uniqueness of the plan to reproduce the Waukee themes throughout the RRVT.
Miller said trail supporters in Greene County have also committed to installations at Cooper, Winkleman Switch and the Jefferson Depot, “so it is becoming a trail-wide project.”
Pillars were erected at the trailhead this week, and tile work will follow.
“I’m very excited to see this enhancement and look forward to seeing it completed,” Pion said.
