Great Miami River continued

Legacy of the Great Dayton Flood

The long stretch of public land that is home to the bikeway is actually the result of Ohio’s greatest natural disas- ter— the Great Flood of 1913. A series of March storms that year overwhelmed  city along the river. More than 360 peo- ple were killed and property damage exceeded $2 billion in today’s dollars. As a result, the Ohio Legislature passed a law and MCD was born. The district built a system of earthen dry -  dams and 55 miles of levee, along with 34 miles of bikeway.

While the conservancy district’s pri-  allows MCD to create recreational assets    plan for bike trails on some of that land.  country and had seen segments of bike trails in Florida and California. He wanted to create something better on  founded the Greater Dayton Bikeway Committee and began promoting the

Smooth paving makes the trail popular with many visitors

idea. Jim Rozelle was an engineer at MCD at the time and served on the   major promoter of the river corridor committee and the bikeway commit- tee,” said Rozelle, who later became MCD’s general manager and chief en- gineer. “He played a key role in getting the original downtown Dayton bikeway going.”  eight-mile loop that went by downtown

Dayton. Rozelle oversaw the construc- tion. Originally, that loop was the whole plan.

“But while we were working on that, we began talking about other bike- ways that could run along the river,” Rozelle said. “In the river corridor com- mittee, there was always the thought that someday we’d have a long corridor linking all the communities, so people could ride as far as they wanted to.” Rozelle has a great sense of pride for what the committee helped start.

Boating access on the Great Miami River Water Trail; photo by Brent Anslinger 18 FALL 2016 AmericanTrails.org