On Saturday, a special funeral procession was held on the bike trail between Yellow Springs and Xenia. It was for Ed Dressler, the man known as the “father” of Greene county’s network of trails.
Charles E. Dressler, or Ed, was a longtime public servant, and an advocate for the environment. He was an icon for the rails-to-trails movement in Ohio. He transformed hundreds of miles of overgrown and unused railroad tracks in southwestern Ohio into the paved bike trails that exist today. Parks and trails professionals from all over the United States and Canada visited the Miami Valley to see Dressler’s trails.
Brady Smith, the Chief Ranger for Greene County Parks and Trails, led the procession, on a trail that Dressler built.
“As an honor to him, we'll travel down the bike path all the way to Xenia, where we'll get off the bike path and then travel to the cemetery,” he said.
Dressler was laid to rest next to his wife at Woodland Cemetery in Xenia.
Environmental reporter Chris Welter is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms.
