By Pauline Masson –
On Route 94, seven miles west of Marthasville stands a town of fewer than 200 permanent residents that thrives as a welcoming Mecca with a modern day twist on tourism. Trelor, Missouri is a favored place of local farmers, visiting cyclists, Missouri conservationists, history buffs, school field trips and hometown folks.
On any Saturday afternoon at the Trelor Bar and Grill, where friendly farmers offer a welcoming handshake to KATY Trail cyclists, visitors are welcomed by a mingling of denim wearing home folks and iridescent clad cyclists.
The owner of this unpretentious eatery located in the town’s former general store is a fifth-generation Trelor restauranteur and tavern operator, Lisa Ketterer, above, with her husband John.
My husband Bob and I took a Saturday ride to Trelor after hearing about vibe that ties past and present to keep the (like Pacific) former railroad town alive. We wanted to learn what our town is doing right and what we might do differently to keep customers in the local eateries and shoppers in local stores.
On the day we were there, a large van unloaded a group of uniformed Girl Scouts, studying the KATY trail. A cluster of motorcycles was grouped a short distance from a group of bicycles. Pick-up trucks lined the parking are near the KATY Trail at the west border of the large open entry area. And a cluster of residents that sauntered down to see who was in town today offered greetings to the visitors.
“It’s not exactly tourism that brings people here,” Lisa said. On weekends, when the town and the bar are filled with farmers, cyclists, and history enthusiasts, Lisa and John’s son Garrett and daughter Olivia, sixth-generation innkeepers, are tapped to help serve customers. “This is still farm country.”
Lisa’s gr-gr-gr grandfather Henry Hasenjaeger opened the Hasenjaeger Tavern adjacent to the Kansas, Missouri and Texas (the KATY) Railroad tracks in 1904. Four generations of Hasenjaeger’s operated the Tavern, which was the community gathering place.
Lisa’s Mother Judy Hasenjaeger was born in the tavern and worked there until she married local farmer Francis Liermann. The family eventually sold the business. After several owners operated the historic tavern until Lisa bought the family business back. She and John operated it in the original building for ten years then moved it into the former general store, which was also operated by her family and adapted the name to the more generic Trelor Bar and Grill.
After driving along vast fields prepped for spring planting of corn and soybeans, motorists turn off Hwy 94 onto Market Street. At the entrance the Missouri Parks Department roofed way marker posts vintage photographs of residents and text that tell the story of the town that once boasted grain elevators, banks, general stores, a post office, a blacksmith shop, a butcher shop, and a hotel with a dance hall and library – as well as the story of the legendary Hasenjaeger Tavern that was the gathering place for residents and the active farm community for 108 years.
For ninety years Trelor had a stop on the KATY Railroad to serve the towns grain elevators, the economic mainstay of the fertile farm region north of the Missouri River. Today the depot is not longer there, but the town has become a stop on the KATY trail, a biker-hiker road on the former rail bed.
The former Trelor Depot that sat at the entrance to the town welcomed passenger trains here for 100 years 1858-1958 and freight trains for another 20 years. In 2000, the rail bed was developed into the KATY Trail, the longest rail to trail project in Missouri.
After the KATY stopped running in 1986, the farm region never gave up on Trelor and Peers, a one-store community three miles east of Trelor that you could miss if you didn’t know what you were looking for. Farmers could still go to the bank, buy a few groceries, enjoy a restaurant meal and a visit with neighbors.
Today Trelor and Peers aren’t even counted by census takers. They’re included in the Marthasville census, so there are no records of how many people live there, but nestled in a six-block grid, neat crisply painted houses line Trelor’s handful of streets and dot the hillside behind the Peer Store.
Local residents took it in stride when a well known investment executive Edward “Ted” Jones decided to reinvent the abandoned KATY rail line into a hiking-biking trail. Trelor and Peers found themselves welcoming recurring waves of visitors.
Two grain elevators stand next to the former rail bed, now bike trail. Local Artist Bryan Haynes painted a pair of his Missouri murals on the elevator closest to the entrance. And the town holds an annual festival at the elevator to benefit the Marthasville Volunteer Fire Department that has a station in Trelor.
The Fire Department, which runs around 300 calls a year, has roughly 60 active volunteer firefighters and three fire stations, in Marthasville, Dutzow and Trelor. Volunteers firefighters sell bratwursts and hot dogs at the Trelor Elevator Party. With that and other fundraisers they were able to buy a 14-foot Zodiac Swift Water Rescue boat.
Trelor also benefited when Warren County became the first county in the State to establish a county farm club. The Treloar Farm Club was instrumental in the formation of clubs in Peers and Marthasville, and the Tri-County Farmers Association, which comprised of Warren, St. Charles and Montgomery counties.
“This is still farm country,” Lisa Ketterer repeated. “My Mom worked in the family restaurant but my Dad was a farmer.”
Dan Burkardt, an Edward Jones executive, and “friend of Ted,” bought the Trelor Mercantile Building – the first structure you see as you enter the town – and the Peers Store, turning both into welcoming stops on the KATY trail and living historic Missouri museums.
Every Saturday morning, area residents show up at the Peers store, where a rotating group of musician perform. Trelor can turn itself into a country fair of white round tables and chairs in front to the Trelor Mercantile building any time Dan Burkardt and his wife Connie call a festival, which they can do at any time.
Burkardt and his wife founded Magnificent Missouri, a conservation program designed to preserve history and keep Missouri culture alive. They bought the decaying structure that once housed Lisa’s family’s historic tavern, and demolished it to make way for a grove of a dozen native Missouri trees that he persuaded a group of Magnificent Missouri followers and fellow conservationists to help plant.
The confluence that ties all the elements together – the elevator festivals, the fire station and its volunteer firefighters, the native trees, the busy bike trail, the surrounding farms and popular local eatery – means that a visit to Trelor is like everyone’s hometown visit.
Three miles east of Trelor, the Peers Store, which operated from 1896 to 1912, is now a living history museum that displays huge murals that tell the story of the community’s past and its reinvention as an educational center. Inside the store features displays of Missouri products, and a group of volunteers are always present to extoll the efforts of Magnificent Missouri the program that promotes the KATY Trail and the native flora of this section of Missouri.
Magnificent Missouri, and Missouri State Parks, planted native flowers, which they dubbed Peers Prairie, in the space between the Katy Trail and Route 94. Depending on the time of year, motorists see splashes of color in front of the 126-year-old store.
This is how history should be promoted, to welcome people to stop and look around , enjoy and experience small town. Missouri. They know how to take advantage of being co-located on the best biking trail around and scenic Hwy’s 47 and 94.
Pacific on the other had still struggles with promoting their prime location. The town fathers are putting all their hopes in one location, the Red Cedar project. They don’t seem to realize we have a local biking trail that runs through town going between Rt 66 State Park and the world renowned Shaw’s Arboretum . In fact over the last 10 years or so it seems they have gone out of their way to eliminate almost every trace of this bike route that was installed using grant money. The only two markers I can find are Bike Route signs behind the East End Plaza and by the commuter lot. There used to be pavement striping and signage through Down Town and out Congress to the west and along Old Gray Summit Rd. The sidewalks along Congress were special shaped to keep a bike’s tires centered on the pathway. The City has since replaced this purposeful design with regular side walks because the old walks “were in rough shape” per a previous mayor. He was most likely miss informed of the design.
Further more , there are many , many places around the area with Rt. 66 and rail history that could be documented and listed as photo op locations.
Another draw would be to have the many blank walls along Osage be decorated with murals painted by locals and school classes. Take a ride to Cuba MO and look at the possibilities.
I believe the City fathers are making a grave error in judgement by concentrating all their efforts in one location, and not involve other locations and businesses in this revival of tourism.