Construction on a quarter-of-a-mile stretch of the Museum Trail near the waterworks curve is expected to begin soon.
“That section should take three to six months to complete,” said Dr. Clay Hays Jr., a volunteer and advocate for the trail.
Neel-Schaffer is designing the plans for that stretch of the trail, a contractor has been selected and just one detail that is a formality remains. “We’re just waiting for the mayor’s signature on a memorandum of understanding,” Hays said.
The Jackson Heart Foundation is funding the design of the trail and has purchased trash cans and benches to place along it.
The segment that is being designed will connect the trail from where it ends in the Belhaven neighborhood to the stretch where it picks up on Museum Drive in front of the Mississippi Children’s Museum and the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science.
“We want to connect them under the waterworks curve by the water treatment plant. That way we won’t have to use Myrtle Street in Belhaven to get from one section to the other section long term,” Hays said.
The city of Jackson had to provide an easement around the J.H. Fewell Water Plant and the Mississippi Department of Transportation also had to provide an easement, he said.
The 2.5-mile Market to Museum Trail follows the abandoned GM&O Railroad from downtown Jackson through greater Belhaven and along the eastern border of LeFleur’s Bluff State Park. The rail-trail portion of the trail extends from Laurel Street to the entrance of the Mississippi’s Farmers Market on Jefferson Street.
The trail provides access to four museums and three parks: the Mississippi History Museum, the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, the Mississippi Children’s Museum, the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, Belhaven Heights Park, Laurel Street Park and LeFleur’s Bluff State Park.
The Greater Belhaven Foundation recenlty celebrated a new mural that Jackson artist Gavin Bird painted at the trail entrance located at the end of Laurel Street under the Interstate 55 overpass. The foundation commissioned the mural that shows oversized butterflies, birds and other wildlife found in the Belhaven area, and a grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission provided funding.
