James Dahle, a long-time Elmhurst resident, related to me his memories of how the Prairie Path evolved from dream to reality.

“Hilda Mae Watts, an English woman who worked at Morton Arboretum, was the woman who is generally given credit for the idea because she had seen how an old railway bed had been re-purposed into a walking and cycling path in England,” Dahle said. “She wrote to the Chicago Tribune about it, but Frank Chybik, who lived in Elmhurst and was a member of the Jaycees with me, worked with them to take her dream and make it a reality.”

Dahle explained that when the railway abandoned their weed-covered right-of-way, they sold the ownership of the land to each community it passed through for $1.

“Excitement exploded,” he said. “Communities were busy deciding which of many hot ideas to develop. Most decided to add needed downtown parking, and others were drawing up plans for housing and commercial buildings. In the meantime, Frank Chybik remembered the idea for a nature, walking, horseback and biking trail and was horrified by these other ideas.”

He apparently cared enough to meet with Watts, and after hearing of her idea for a path with gentle curves, he bought bags of lime to map it out. He then asked Dahle, another Jaycee member, to draw him a giant illustration of the right-of-way with the path, plantings and the streets that crossed it. Dahle agreed to avoid the “bowling alley” look and create gentle curves.

“We had these curves follow a zig-zag path through the green construction paper illustration. It was a big, folding, sign-like illustration about 12 feet by three or four feet, and we had the help of six of our fellow Jaycees to stretch it out and hold it up in front of the court-like setting with our city officials while Frank shared the dream.”

Chybik’s dream eventually got the approval of then Mayor Charles Weigel and the City Council; however, he was then faced with the problem of approaching the other communities and getting them to agree with the plan. He also needed gravel and lots of it!

“Hammerschmidt Stone Quarry was talked into donating trucks filled with gravel,” Dahle said. “Frank stood at the tailgates with his shovel as each truck slowly drove our route down the abandoned railway. The metal tracks had already been removed by the railway for recycling.”

Chybik then concentrated his efforts on convincing the other communities that the free land they had been given should become a walking path that would bring in no income.

“He knocked on my door again,” Dahle said, “and I helped him put together a newsletter, which he sent to every community, every politician, every tree hugger, every organization — everybody with a pulse — telling of the value, health benefits, community fun, prairie preservation, romance and everything else he could think of to sell the idea. There were several mailings, and Chybik financed them out of his own pocket.”

Chybik is now semi-retired and living in Maple Park, a rural community west of Geneva. When I contacted him, he seemed embarrassed about all the attention and said, “Much of the credit goes to the foresight of Mayor Weigel and the City Council as well as to then-City Manager Robert Palmer. It was an exciting project, which the Jaycees adopted and which I helped make happen.”

Chybik’s and others’ dream of a walking path became a reality, which has added to every community along its route.

“It has expanded in every direction across the state, giving us a silent, waiting and wandering non-commercial footing to endless adventure, exercise, fresh air, hand-holding, biking, jogging and just sitting,” Dahle said with satisfaction. “If you listen really, really carefully to the breeze bending the wild grassy areas, you can make out Mother Nature whispering ‘Thanks, Frank,’ but you really have to listen. Nobody else is saying it.”

James Dahle is at least one exception to that.