Rich history of East Topeka's Dornwood Nature Trails preserved thanks to volunteer efforts

To love nature is one thing. To spend your free time taking care of it is another.

That's exactly what Andy Phillips has been doing for the past decade at Dornwood Nature Trails in East Topeka.

The avid biker is the latest volunteer trail coordinator to help tend to the nearly 10 miles of single track that stands just east of Highland Park High School.

"These were the first trails I rode in Topeka," Phillips said. "It's different than Skyline and it's different than the Governor's trail."

What sets these trails apart from others are also what makes them often tough to maintain.

Changes to the land over the decades of use have caused the trail system to often be forgotten, but Phillips said he hopes to continue the legacy.

"It's a safe trail," he said. "I feel like, you know, it just I somehow or another got a bad reputation."

A dairy farm in decay featured on East Topeka trail

It's impossible to overlook the history of the Dornwood trails if you were to visit.

Prior to the 1920s, the Dornwood Dairy Farm was owned by T.F. Doran and operated as one of the finest dairy farms in the state. It featured state-of-the-art facilities including a main barn, wells, a farmhouse Doran's family lived at and a small frame house.

Prairie grasses used to fill most of the area that is now overgrown by trees and stretched past S.E. Whittenburg Road way before Kansas Turnpike Authority constructed I-470 to the east.

Remnants of the barn are still visible as you enter the park from the west parking lot by the ball diamonds, but due to vandalism over the years it's possible the last remaining structure may be torn down.

"Once the roof was gone, these rock walls, they just can't handle that weather," said Tom Hammer, Shawnee County district manager of the west parks.

Hammer has led efforts to maintain the trails and parks in the county for about 25 years and now splits the responsibility with Scott Terry, who is the district manager for the east parks that includes Dornwood.

Both were on hand on a Friday earlier this month touring a Capital-Journal photographer on the grounds where Hammer used to lead school groups on nature tours.

The barn itself has become a safety hazard, as Hammer explained, and is beyond repair. Thirty years ago, some residents wanted to make it into a nature center, but the city did not have interest in that project, he said.

Within a few weeks, a new interpretive sign will be installed that will feature a photo of the barn in its heyday and history of the property.

"It may not matter much in 20 years if that barn's gone," Hammer said, "but at least we'll have something to look at."

Hammer also points out where signage used to be that showed features like the unique native trees in the area but have been vandalized over the years.

Other trees in the area include chinquapin oak, hackberry, redbud, cottonwood, black walnut, Osage orange, dogwood, varieties of hickory and ash, Willow, buckeye, boxelder and a tree of heaven, according to an original map of the property.

Hammer said a cottonwood dating more than 100 years old was close to being a Kansas Champion Tree before it fell.

Dornwood Nature Trails have range of cross-country to 'whoopty-doos'

Three main trails make up the Dornwood system, and each have unique characters.

Back in the 1990s, the trails were marked by the first coordinator, Gilbert Amis, who hosted races on the three loops that now make up the blue, red and yellow trails.

"The blue is kind of a longer like cross-country style trail, a little bit less challenging than the red," Phillips said.

Starting points for the blue are marked on the north end of the barn and keep to the west side of Deer Creek. The trail crosses atop a cliff, strip mine area and prairie grasses.

The red trails are also considered cross-country, or XC, but have more rocky features that cross the creek and hills to the south of the barn and new concrete Deer Creek Extension trails.

Yellow trails are considered the most fun of the three and are positioned opposite of the blue trails to the west of Deer Creek and feature dips in and out of the creek beds to take advantage of the slight elevation changes.

"We called them the 'whoopty-doos' back then," said Phillips. "Gravity cavities is another one."

Early mountain bike scene in Topeka led by Tilford brothers

Even though the trails are there for hiking and biking, the biking part always seemed to be at the forefront.

Back in the late 1880s and early 1990s, local riders Kris Tilford and his brother Steve Tilford would compete in races put on by Amis and the National Off Road Bicycle Association, or NORBA.

"In the very early days of mountain bike racing, mountain biking was different than it is now," Kris Tilford said. "One of the aspects that that isn't in mountain bike racing or what's called technical climbing where you climb up the really, really steep single track things."

The Tilford brothers went on to compete in races and became sponsored riders. Steve Tilford would go on to win four U.S. cyclo-cross titles; the first U.S. Mountain Bike Championship in 1983; five Masters World championships and finished second in the 1996 U.S. Olympic Trials. This past weekend, he was inducted into the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame. He died in 2017 in a car crash.

Kris Tilford continues to ride his bike to this day but sticks mainly to the roads and recently passed 12,000 miles for the year.

Volunteers always needed to maintain trails in Shawnee County

Trail maintenance takes a lot of effort and tends to rely on those using them on a daily basis.

Partnerships between the county and local trail organizations have always been in place to lighten the load. Most recently, Top City Trails Alliance under the leadership of Rick Bean have taken it upon themselves to help with the trail systems in Shawnee County.

"It's hard, quite honestly, for one or two people to manage a trail system. It's almost impossible," Bean said. "We focus on our community and trying to make things better for our communities is a little bit different than a statewide organization who has to focus on all sorts of things across the state."

The group hosts monthly trail work days on the three systems the manage, Dornwood, Skyline and Kaw River State Park, and post regular updates to their Facebook page to further engagement.

For Phillips, he just hopes people get outside and use the trails around the county.

"I think for the health of Topeka, it's a good thing. So like everybody, no matter where you're at, needs to get out and exercise a little bit," he said. "I really believe it helps the quality of life of people."

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Dornwood Nature Trails in East Topeka flow thanks to local volunteers