Momentum Builds for the Mill Creek Trail: South Salt Lake Awarded Outdoor Recreation Planning Grant

Authored by: Ronnie Pessetto

There is something profoundly human in the act of uncovering a creek. To return to the water is to return to memory, to history, to what we tried to bury and what insists on being seen.

In June 2025, South Salt Lake City received the Outdoor Recreation Planning Assistance grant—a humble-sounding phrase, maybe, but it carries the weight of a future being written. With it comes the promise of design and engineering work on the next segment of the Mill Creek Trail, connecting Fitts Park to Granite Park Junior High.

Now, some might call this a trail project. A line on a map. A grant in a ledger.

But I have learned to look deeper.

This is about what it means to move freely. To walk beside a creek and know that the land is not only useful, but sacred. That we still have time to shape something better than what we inherited.

For too long, the waters of Mill Creek, and so many others, have been overlooked. But the water does not forget. It waits.

And when a city chooses to invest in trails, in daylighting, in restoration, in reimagining what has been lost—it is not only investing in infrastructure. It is investing in dignity. In beauty. In the quiet insistence that nature and people belong to one another, still.

South Salt Lake has chosen to say yes to that future. And for that, we give thanks. We extend our congratulations—not only in celebration, but in solidarity. Because this work is not finished. It never is.

Let this trail segment be the next step in a long walk home. Let it remind us that restoration is not a luxury—it is a responsibility. A kind of truth-telling. A kind of love.

We’ll be there, every step of the way!