PHOTO BY JOHN FRYMAN / THE VILLAGE REPORTER
ANNUAL MEETING … Ed Snyder (above) who serves as chairman of the Wabash Cannonball Corridor Coordinating Committee called the annual meeting to order on Thursday, March 5 at Rilla’s Event Venue in Montpelier.
By: John Fryman
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
john@thevillagereporter.com
The Wabash Cannonball Corridor Coordinating Committee held its annual meeting on Thursday, March 5, at Rilla’s Event Venue in Montpelier.
Ed Snyder, who serves as president of the Northwest Ohio Rails to Trails Association (NORTA), called the meeting to order.
Following the introduction of those in attendance, a review of this year’s agenda and the approval of the 2025 meeting minutes, Snyder was reelected as chairman of the committee for another year.
The committee heard updates from various jurisdictions regarding the Wabash Cannonball Trail, which spans 64 miles of the former Wabash Railroad corridor in Northwest Ohio.
Randy Miller of West Unity, representing NORTA, gave an update on activities during the year.
“We’re all involved in all the maintenance, updates and trying to get things passable when trees are down,” said Miller.
Miller reported that a new parking area on County Road 6-2 in Fulton County was developed. It replaced a smaller parking lot that previously allowed only three vehicles.
“We’ve increased the parking lot capacity to maybe six or seven more vehicles additional, and we did that in the late summer,” said Miller. “It’s always kind of where people are getting on and off and finding a parking place.”
He pointed out that NORTA is looking to add another parking area to a section called Nafziger Drive. The parking area would be located near the former Carter Lumber building where the trail crosses U.S. Route 20-A and runs along the highway toward Fulton County Road 23.
Miller stressed the need to build a parking area because people from Archbold and Wauseon are using the trail and needing a place to park.
Representing Williams County at the meeting were Rodney Miller and Bob Tressler of the Williams County Park Board.
Rodney Miller commented that the county has done work on the trail, especially around the Beaver Creek bridge area. They are planning to do drainage work for almost two miles from U.S. Route 127 toward the west this year.
Tressler commented that the county had replaced trail signs with new, legible signage. Montpelier was represented by Parks and Recreation Director Sandy Gordon and council member Nathan Thompson.
Since becoming trail partners in 2021, the village of Montpelier has been working toward making improvements on its section of the Wabash Cannonball Trail from County Road 13 to County Road 17.
In 2023, the village spearheaded a study of the Wabash Cannonball Trail in Williams County. Nearly $40,000 was spent on the study and raised by local villages, area foundations, NORTA, Friends of the Montpelier Park and Williams County Park Board.
The village was pleased that there were 554 respondents to the public survey portion of the project.
The study gave the village direction, and officials then sought funding for design engineering to pave the four miles of trail.
Montpelier then applied for and received over $300,000 in state capital funds for the design engineering of the trail. About half of that was spent in 2025 with the remainder to be spent this year.
The village also applied for and was extremely pleased to receive $4.48 million in Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) funds from ODOT in June 2025 to pave its four miles of the trail in 2029.
Additionally, Joe Shepard donated an $8,000 flail mower to the village to help keep the edges of the trail mowed.
The next meeting of the Wabash Cannonball Corridor Coordinating Committee will be Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, at a place to be determined.
