Walter Ordway Jr. (1947–2014) was a visionary organic farmer, global adventurer, and trailblazer whose passion for cycling led to the creation of the Trempealeau Trails in Wisconsin. Born in Iowa, Ordway grew up on a family farm in Soldier, Monona County, where his ancestors had settled in the 19th century. He transformed much of his 500+ acres into organic land, producing high-value corn while prioritizing sustainability and community over profit. Described as restless and enigmatic—”sort of like a feral cat”—Ordway built a “bank account of people” through deep relationships, including mentoring a surrogate son and a long partnership with artist Johanna Anderson until her death in 2010.
His adventures defined him: From 1967 to 1995, Ordway traveled to 94 countries with 188 border crossings, mostly by bicycle, including a planned trek across Africa. He met the Dalai Lama in India for an hour-long conversation and left artistic legacies like murals and paintings worldwide. In 1995, during a multiyear global excursion by bike and sailboat, Ordway discovered the scenic roads of Trempealeau County, Wisconsin. On a bicycle trip across Wisconsin to Door County with a friend, Walter stopped by to see his friend Jeff Knowles, a Department of Land Management Conservationalist who had moved from the Soldier area, where Walter was from, to Eau Claire, WI. Jeff knew about Walter’s projects out in Western Iowa that included starting the Loess Hills Scenic Byways project, Loess Hills Hospitality Association and Gift Shop, as well as a rural bus tour organization. He also knew a fellow land conservationalist, Olin Fimreit, from Whitehall, WI was interested in starting up rural bus tours in Trempealeau County. Walter called Olin and arranged to meet him. This began a 20+ year friendship and partnership in starting up tourism efforts in Trempealeau County.
Trempealeau County Times
From Our Early Files Sept. 9, 2023
Tue, 09/05/2023 – 11:51am TimesEditor_Andrew
“The Trempealeau County Tourism Council has been given statewide recognition for its work, including its first-in-the-state rural bus tour program. The council, founded five years ago by citizens working with the county government, was honored last week by Wisconsin Rural Partners, Inc. The council was recognized as one of Wisconsin’s top 50 rural development initiatives during the Governor’s Rural Summit 2, held in Mosinee. “
Walter and Olin set about meeting with potential bus tour stop owners such as; Dr Dettloff, owner of a very large collection of antique cream separators, PhoneCo, a museum and sales office of antique phones, a 5000 head of cattle Organic dairy farm where they drove the buses through the feeding barn, an Amish farm where the men would go with the husband and the women with the wife, one would head to the barns and the other the house, then they’d switch, and many, many other cool spots around the area. Churches would serve snacks and meals. Walter helped organized the initial packages and market them to bus tour companies around the Midwest. He was also a very popular tour guide, which he had done out in Western Iowa around his home in Soldier. During his time developing the Trempealeau County Motorcoach Tours Walter and Olin got together with Wade Britzius, the Director of a local public access television station, WTCO TV Channel 18, and they came up with the very popular local show, Discover Trempealeau County with Olin as the host, Wade as fiming and production.
As Walter traveled the back roads of Trempealeau County he discovered that they are all paved during WW2 to get the milk out to the Boys and envisioned them as a cyclist’s paradise. Turning to the Tourism Council and County Board for funding, he was initially turned down. It was only that Senator Rod Moen was in the audience that got the Trails off the ground. After the meeting he contacted Olin to tell him that he had found money in the Wisconsin DOT Road Enhancements Funds, that Walter should apply, that he’d get the money, but there would be no more money after. Walter applied in 1998 and secured a $35,000 Wisconsin Department of Transportation grant to be paid out in the spring of 1999. The Trempealeau County Tourism Council and Trempealeau County Board of Supervisors also contributed money for printing of the brochures.
A lot of what you’ll read here about the Trails’ history is different than what you may have heard or read other places. Very little of this information was spread around even during the time when Walter was working in the area. He was a very enigmatic man who only came to town in short bursts of a week or two here and there throughout the project. He rarely gave pubic speeches or even told anybody anything about himself as he went. I know, for a fact, that in the three years he worked on the project, he only submitted two bills for his own payment, totalling $1,200. Way, way less than he spent on travel from Soldier to Whitehall alone, plus driving each loop several times, and outside marketing. Let alone the thousands of hours he spent consulting and working on the project. Walter was a recognized international expert on rural tourism, even being sent to Russia by the State of Iowa as a rural tourism expert on a team developing relationships, similar to Sister City programs.
I only know this information because I lived it. The only other person I know who could share what he knew of the time from the inner circle, Olin Fimreit, has dementia. There are many people around who have bits and pieces of this story, but Walter, Olin, and I were the three main people who worked on the project. Olin and I consulted with Walter every night about the days’ events and ideas for tomorrows. I spent every morning at the breakfast room table with him as it was my family’s first summer owning the Oak Park Inn. I also was sponsored by the Oak Park Inn, travel expenses, to go out and assist volunteers with the portions of the project that needed completion by short deadlines. Walter, also, had me do the monthly reports to the Parks Committee of the Trempealeau County Board, so the only information they got, they got from me.
We bought the Oak Park Inn Dec. 28th, 1998. My first experience with the idea of bicycle tourism in the County was when an elderly gentleman wearing a farmer’s cap, vented of course, and way up on the forehead, came into the office and introduced himself as Olin Fimreit. He told me about a gentleman named Walter Ordway who had recieved a grant to build bike trails around the county. He asked if we would be willing to donate some room nights to Walter so he could invite his friends out to consult on the project. I said “sure, no problem. How many do you need?” and that’s how it started. Walter didn’t come into town until a couple months later. What I didn’t understand when we bought the hotel is that it came with a Walter. He had been using the breakfast room table for many years already while planning out the bus tours, so he was a regular customer who had never stayed at the inn. Apparently, it was the only clean and open table he could find that was large enough around the area that came with free coffee..
The early part of the summer of 1999 was spent with very large maps printed out by the County Land Use Department and highlighter markers. Walter would sit at the breakfast room table every morning while he was working in the area. Many nights he spent at my apartment around a camp fire, sleeping in the back of his truck in the parking lot pulled up next to some bushes. I would offer him a free room and he’d reply “hotel rooms make me feel lonely. I like the outside noises.” In the morning he would come in and have a cup of coffee or two while plotting out potential routes the loops would take. He broke the project down into two parts, the Southern and Northern Loops. He focused on the first 7 Loops in 1999, driving them sometimes multiple times to get them right in his convertable or pickup truck. I went on many of these rides, one of the most memorable was when Isreal came to town, the man with the golden voice. I could sit and listen to him talk for days, hypnotized by the sonorous and vibrant tones. He was a professional bus tour guide in Europe with a very upscale company, Trafalgar Tours. He stayed at the Inn for a couple nights using some of the room nights we had donated to Walter. We drove around in Walter’s convertable with the top down. Isreal never seemed to forget that I was in the back seat and always kept me in the conversation, that meant a lot to me at the time and still sticks with me.
After that, he went around seeking volunteers to help pitch the local businesses about 10% discounts in Food, Beverage, and Lodging for bicyclists with a brochure. He also needed volunteers to go out and speak to the people who lived around the loops asking if they’d be willing to help out cyclists in need of water, a phone, or possibly a ride back to town. Those who agreed got blue bike signs on their mailboxes. Walter then went to the local elementry schools to get school kids aged 6-10 to draw pictures of what it looks like for a bicyclist to ride through their town. The winners got their picture into the initial brochures, a free bicycle helmet, and their picture in the paper. One of the cutest things I have ever seen in my entire life was when I got to go take the picture for the paper, a little kid coming down the hallway holding his teachers hand asking why he’s being taken out of class. The teacher, a tall slender woman, leans down and tells him he won the coloring contest. He looked at her with happy tears glimmering in his eyes as he said “I’ve never won anything before!” He had the broadest smile as I handed him his helmet. I’ve met some of these kids years later and they all still brag about getting their picture in the brochure.
There were dozens to hundreds of volunteers before the project was completed including; mailmen, schoolbus drivers, school kids, teachers, hotel operators, Tourism Council members, to County Board members. I wish that I could remember all of their names to share with you now. I can say for sure, Wade Britzius, Olin Fimreit, George Brandt, Duane (Freddy) Fredrickson, Sandra & Jon Alberson, Travis Mossman, Linda Mossman, Steven Sendele, Crystal Hegge, John Hegge, “Cycle-On” Ron McKernan, Dr Baxa, Craig Moffet, Isreal, George Pilling, James Nordaker, and many more.
Once the first brochure was printed, Walter started marketing. I went with him to pretty much everything he did and to quite a few by myself. Walter was an amazing traveling companion. I remember the first trip we took together to hand out brochures. I asked him “What’s the plan when we get there?”
“There is no plan.”
“What do you mean there is no plan?”
“There’s no plan.”
“What are we going to do when we get there?”
“I don’t know, we’ll see when we get there.” and that’s all he’d say on the matter.
It’s a good thing we didn’t spend any time discussing plans, because the moment we got there everything we could have thought up went sideways and we ended up just having to wing it, finding our own table, and handed out brochures like carnival barkers “Trempealeau Trails! Get your Trempealeau Trails Brochure! Here ya go sir!” it was loads of fun!
One of the major stops was a League of American Bicyclists meeting where Walter was a presenter. Walter, rather than talking the entire time, handed out brochures and asked what he could do to make them better. The attendees all went through them and critiqued various things such as the fact that the brochures never actually said Wisconsin anywhere in them, nor gave a map showing where the trails were at. All of the ideas were compiled into a small greenish yellow insert that went into the first brochures we had left. The second printing of the first brochure had all of the revisions made into the brochure and on the cover.
The year 2000 was spent developing the next 7 loops in the Northern part of the County. Walter had a system down from year one so this went a lot more quickly. We were marketing and building simultaneously and even hosted the Twin Cities Bicycle Club’s first ride in the area when they came to Arcadia. We extended our marketing efforts to new cities and States as we went. Late in the season the final completed version was produced containing all of the origional 14 Loops. It was a magazine sized brochure with hand-drawn maps, Walter origionals, the school kids artwork, all the trail stewards, and local businesses listed.
2001 was spent traveling with the brochures. We went to the League of American Bicyclists annual meeting where Congressman Oberstar from Minnessota was the keynote speaker. He was giving a speech about Safe Roads to Schools initiatives he had in Minnessota. He talked about how we needed to get the communities involved, the businesses, the school kids, and their parents. As soon as he was done, Kris Kringle, now President, introduced Walter and I to Oberstar and we handed him one of the brochures with smiles that said “jobs done.” We also went to Iowa to see the last day of RAGBRAI. That was really something to see! Wow, I was blown away. There were several other cities we hit, St Paul, Madison, Milwaukee, and even Menomonie to meet up with 1000 cyclists raising money for AIDS research. That was one of the few times Walter spoke in front of a group. We didn’t have an apointment, as usual, and the group was just all meeting up in a tent for a pep-rally. Walter was handed the microphone and he talked for about 5 minutes. Before we left, they all took brochures.
Ron McKernan showed up one day at the Oak Park Inn during the late part of 2001 as a group of cyclists were preparing to head out for the day. He was a local who loved cycling and meeting new people who shared the same interest. After meeting them he rode out with the group for the day and had a great time. After the ride we got to know him a bit and invited him to a meeting with the volunteers who had helped build the project to discuss the future of the trails. Walter had no intention of sticking around to run the trails or even profit from them in any way. With the grant money spent and project completed, he was headed back to Iowa and his travels. We all voted and Ron McKernan was the new leader of the project.
He took over the bike trails, rides, and promotions. Forming the BCTC, Bike Club of Trempealeau County was his first step. He then added several new loops including Loop 16, our longest and, by far, most popular route. Over 65 miles, connecting three cities, it goes along the Eastern side of Buffalo County through some of the most scenic views in the whole area. It also has Aligator Slide, one of the funnest downhills in the whole trail system. Ron and his team of volunteers redesigned the bicycle brochure into something people could actually use to navigate the trails.. Walter’s maps were cool looking, hand-drawn works of art, but lacked some details that made getting lost really hard to recover from. Back then, there was no Google Maps, gps navigation, or signage. He founded and organized many new bicycle tours throughout the County and was a tireless promoter of the Trempealeau Trails. Ron was also very instrumental in bringing in thousands of bicyclists from all over the Country! His passion for cycling makes him so much fun to ride with that people just kept showing up to ride with him.
Walter continued his traveling afterwards and encountered the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado. He had such a good time there that he wanted to bring it back to the area. He got together with Will and Maggie Kitchen’s from the Winona Shakespearian Festival to start up a new film festival. Thus, the Frozen River Film Festival was born. Taking successes from that venture Walter went back to Luther College, where he graduated from, and pitched his friend Kyrle Henderson, a film producer, who graduated with Walter on the idea of starting another film festival in Decorah, IA. Thus, the Oneota Film Festival was started.
Walter wanted to turn his farm Organic. He didn’t know much about farming despite being a farmer through childhood. So he decided to go on a farm tour. He spoke to Dr Dettloff, a very famous local Organic Vetrinarian, who was also a stop on the Trempealeau County Motorcoach Tours for his cream separator collection. Dr Dettloff wrote down a list of 25 names and addresses of his clients for Walter that gave the broadest spectrum of farms, farming techniques, and reasons that they got into Organic farming. From neglect, money, health, religion, and ethics. Rich farms, poor farms, big farms, and small. I took 6 weeks off work to travel with him. We went to 23 of the 25 farms, 2 Walter spoke to on the phone. Together we went to 27 farms, Walter went on a cross-country trip and made it to 61 farms in total, including two of the farms mentioned in Michael Pollan’s Omnivor’s Dilema. He took all of this information and poured it into his farm. At the time of his death, Walter had the largest Organic farm in Western Iowa and he’d only managed to get half of it converted completely by that time.
Ordway’s life ended tragically on November 17, 2014, at age 67, when he drowned at Oldham Pond near Soldier, Iowa, after rushing onto thin ice to rescue his beloved old English sheepdog, Lewis. His body was recovered months later, adding to the mystery surrounding this “Loess Hills wizard.” Friends, including Mossman, safeguarded his home during the search. Ordway’s ashes were scattered in 2015, with memorials celebrating his global journeys and Iowa’s Loess Hills Scenic Byway, which he also championed.
Walter was my teacher, mentor, and best friend.
Travis Mossman, Sept. 2025
For Farther Reading
https://iowaculture.medium.com/loess-hills-scenic-byway-d8b7c88e4e60
https://iowaroadtrip.net/loess-hills-scenic-overlook-in-monona-county-iowa