Video: Houston Residents Encouraged To Dream Big For Tanglefoot Possibilities

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HOUSTON, MISS. (WCBI) – It took more than ten years of planning and partnerships between local, state and the federal government, but the Tanglefoot Trail is now open.

Now, economic developers and community planners are looking at ways to bring more people to towns along the trail and also develop ideas for attractions and public spaces.

The Houston Civic Center is home to a three day workshop is organized by the Citizens Institute on Rural Design and participants are looking at ways to develop the Tanglefoot Trail and Trailhead.

“It’s a lot of real estate, that is sitting there empty and is now all of a sudden the front door to a 44 mile trail, so we are thinking what that space could be,” said Cynthia Nitikin, of the Citizens Institute on Rural Design.

The goal is to find ways to serve residents of Houston and visitors to the biking and walking trail and to connect the trail to the Natchez Trace Parkway.

The workshop features presentations from experts in areas such as effective signage, bicycling activities and great community spaces. Participants are encouraged to come up with a variety of ideas and projects.

“The idea of maybe concerts in the park, or let’s call it concerts on the Trailhead. Or for Farmer’s Market in the park, or in the Trailhead, or movies in the park, or movies in the Trailhead,” said Keith Holt, of the Wisconsin Bike Federation.

This workshop is very hands on, right now, the groups behind me are in breakout sessions. They are looking at all the ideas and coming up with a list of the top five ideas for the Trailhead and the community.

The workshop is funded from a grant through the National Endowment for the Arts and MSU’s Carl Small Town Center is overseeing the initiative.

“This is the first step in any kind of process, when you are looking at, what do you do with a new asset. You have to get together as a community, talk about what your hopes and dreams are, talk about how you want to take advantage of this opportunity, but you really need expertise to help walk through that process, which is what we are funding,” said Jason Schupbach of the NEA.

Locals are looking forward to getting the ideas from the drawing board to reality.

“This has been discussed for quite awhile and now it’s time to start action, there are things we can do in short term that are little cost to us to go ahead and begin making these improvements,” said Houston Alderman at Large, Barry Springer.

The workshop concludes Tuesday evening.

MSU’s Carl Small Town Center will help implement the ideas from the workshop.