Nathan’s Miles Glow Trail lights up Vinton community

This story first appeared in Engineers Week 2025, an annual special section that showcases a variety of local engineering topics to celebrate all that engineers contribute to our world.

The first glow-in-the-dark walking trail in Iowa — and what is believed to be the longest in the nation — was unveiled in Vinton in 2021.

The City of Vinton had developed a Master Trails Plan a decade earlier and was ready to build its most ambitious pathway yet — an extension of the “trail to nowhere” three-mile loop around the school campus that would serve a growing area of the city.

Justin Campbell, transportation engineer with Shive-Hattery, was part of the team that made the project come together.

“Where it really got interesting was when we were about 80 percent done with the planning,” he said. “As a designer sometimes you're like, ‘oh boy,’ when a client says, ‘let's make a left turn here.’ But what was great about working with Vinton was that this was their idea. They said, ‘what if it glowed?’ I remember thinking ‘wow, thanks for that question. I need to work with the team to start looking into all the different options.’ The city went all in on this, and it was pretty exciting.”

Campbell said after weighing different options of colors and glow intensities, they went with the ultra-grade, half inch, emerald green glow stones because of their superior brightness. They were applied to the concrete at a moderate rate (one pound of stones to every 16 square feet of concrete).

“This project was in a rural setting, so we also had to balance the uniqueness of the trail with the surrounding fields,” Campbell said, noting that in some places they were dealing with three or four feet of topsoil and had to work around farming operations to complete the project. “And we had to consider safety and lighting, which we always consider with trail projects, but was a challenge because we wanted it to be as dark as possible so the trail could glow.”

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The trail, which starts at the corner of 21st Street and Second Avenue, is named Nathan's Miles Glow Trail in memory of former Vinton city council member and early advocate of the project, Nathan Hesson. Hesson died in January 2021 at age 37. The trail is a beautiful memorial to Hesson, who was known for his dedication to his community, as well as his trademark smile.

"Hopefully that will be something that the people that knew him can remember about him for a long time to come," said Ashley Hesson, Nathan’s wife. "And the people that don't know him or that will come and enjoy the trail in the future can learn a little bit about his story and who he was and what he put back into the community around him."

Great collaborations helped support the project, including from the school district and the county. Matt Boggess, director of Parks and Recreation for the City of Vinton, was leading the project on behalf of the city. He said it couldn’t have been more of a success as today the trail has become a highlight of the community, used by all ages for all types of trail recreation. Residents of Vinton now have a fun and exciting trail to run or ride on, both day and night.

“As an engineer, I want to make designs that matter,” Campbell said. “There’s something about working with communities, which is where I spend a lot of my time. They have budgets and need to stay on schedule, which is important, but when a community brings something fun like this to the table, it’s so exciting because you know it’s going to have a legacy. You know you are helping the community grow.”

Campbell said he still loves hearing stories of people using the trail.

“The amount of use the trail gets all year round continues to be genuinely heartfelt and continues to make me very proud of the project itself, not just walkers and runners, but bikers and people of all ages,” Boggess said.

Boggess added he still gets calls from all over the country — and world — asking about the project and how they made it happen.

“This was a fun and unique project to do something different to draw people to our small town from an economic development perspective and to make it something that was more interesting than just a regular path,” he said. “Communities build trails all the time, and it’s great and fun and serves a purpose. But to be able to do something that was extremely unique, and it was one of the first of its kind was very, very interesting.”

Boggess said calls have come from other small towns and larger communities, including Boston, Massachusetts; Jacksonville, Florida; Charlotte, North Carolina; Santa Barbara, California; and even a few from Europe.

“That’s the cool part about what we did,” Campbell said. “Vinton was first so there is a level of making sure we get it right, including from an engineering standpoint. There’s going to be a lot of eyes on it.”