Take a Stroll on the New South Point Walking Trail

By Heather Rule

With a new apartment building in town, there’s also a new South Point Walking Trail for the community to use.

The walking trail, just shy of a mile long, sits to the south of the 60-unit South Point apartment building. The trail goes around the perimeter of the developable land. It was enhanced this summer thanks to an Age-Friendly Minnesota grant. The city added three new picnic shelters, garbage cans, and pet stations along the trail.

The trail is unpaved, but it’s a hard-surface trail since the land around it is currently undeveloped. Along with help from the grant, the Lions Club paid for the trail and added pine trees in 2025. The community service group also helps to maintain the trail all year.

Last summer, the city connected the South Point Walking Trail to Willow Creek Lane to create access. The trail is also a great way to hop over to the city’s new dog park. With that connection in place, trail users could eventually connect with the city’s sidewalk system to come north into town.

“It’s a walking amenity here in our city,” said New York Mills City Clerk Julie Roberts.  

The city’s new 2,400-square-meter dog park is fenced in with a pet station. The city is looking to raise more money to add more amenities to the dog park, like benches, picnic tables, and other features for the animals.

New York Mills residents and visitors are using both the new trail and the new dog park. From one corner of the walking trail to reach the dog park is a relatively short, quarter-mile walk. Between the trail that connects to the city sidewalk system, the new dog park, and the new apartment building, New York Mills has seen strong development, and there’s more to come.

“This whole South Point area, that’ll be developed eventually into housing,” Roberts said. “There’s a small area of commercial on it, but most of it is housing, both single and multi-family. It’s kind of a nice amenity to start building out there when we are ready.”