Hermantown Awarded $950,000 For Trails System

HERMANTOWN, Minn.– The City of Hermantown is going to be seeing some big changes to their trails system in the coming years.

Earlier this week, it was announced that the city has been awarded a $950,000 grant from the Greater Minnesota Regional Parks and Trails Commission to continue development of the Hermantown Connector Trail System.

These trails are a part of the larger Proctor-Hermantown Munger Trail Spur Master Plan.

“In Hermantown, we’re calling it Hermantown Community Connector Trail. And so far, to date we’ve built two and a half miles of that. Essentially from Stebner road, down our eastern portion of the city. So, with these grant dollars we’re receiving, we’re actually going to be going up our north portion of the city,” said Eric Johnson, Community Development Director for the City of Hermantown.

The new trail is planned to connect the northern edge of town through Hermantown’s southern border with Proctor.

It will start near the Hermantown Community School and Essentia Wellness Center and pass through three community parks.

“While 80 percent of our residents said these trails area great thing. We want to keep doing these, once again, during COVID, we saw so many people out walking. And our trail systems are just hitting the ground at that point. really used strongly. We maintain these trails throughout the winter months,” said Johnson.

The city of Proctor recently passed a sales tax referendum which dedicated nearly 7.5 million dollars to the trail system.

Construction of the Hermantown portion of the trail is expected to start sometime this year.

Project planners say that they eventually want the trail to connect to the state-run Willard Munger Trail in Duluth.