WILLOW CREEK — The first four miles of the Mattawamkeag River Trail opened to the public on Saturday, drawing 150 residents, county officials, and representatives from the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands to a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Willow Creek Trailhead.

The segment connects the trailhead at the old mill pond to the Thorne’s Bend overlook, following the course of the Mattawamkeag River through mixed hardwood forest. The trail is eight feet wide, surfaced with crushed stone, and graded for wheelchair access.

“This is the first tangible result of a vision that began with the Aroostook Nordic Club’s proposal seven years ago,” said First Selectman Arthur Whitcomb, who cut the ribbon with borrowed ceremonial shears. “Seven years of grant applications, engineering studies, bridge inspections, and public hearings. And now we have something to show for it.”

The completed trail segment cost approximately $65,000 of the $180,000 grant award. The second segment, from Thorne’s Bend to the old West Branch junction, is expected to open in summer 1990. The final segment to the Mattawamkeag Lake Overlook is projected for 1993.

Jed Thorne, who gave a speech on the history of the corridor, noted that the trail passes within half a mile of the Thorne family homestead. “I can stand on my front porch and hear the river,” he told the crowd. “And now I can walk to it on a trail that was once a railroad that carried the timber my family’s ships were built to haul.”

Within an hour of the ribbon-cutting, three families had begun hikes, two cyclists had tested the surface, and a couple from Houlton had arrived with fishing poles, hoping to try the river access at Thorne’s Bend.

“People are coming here because of a trail,” Clara Winslow wrote in her editorial. “Seven years ago, the idea that anyone would come to Willow Creek for recreation seemed fanciful. Today, it is a fact.”

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