COEUR d'ALENE - Up comes a piece of Coeur d'Alene's history, rail by rail, tie by tie.

It will be replaced by its future: an expanded higher education campus, public space and pedestrian trails connecting downtown to Mill River and beyond.

After years in the making, Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway Company is abandoning 3.25 miles of railroad tracks that run through the heart of Coeur d'Alene, leaving the city and partnering agencies the right-of-way for future development in place of the old iron thoroughfare.

"That is a chapter that is closed, I guess, and it's been around for 100 years," said Mike Gridley, city attorney, on the historical staple being ripped from the ground. "That's unfortunate, but it will be replaced by something that can be used more by the public ... Expanded educational opportunities and expanded recreational opportunities."

Crews began removing the railroad on Monday, four years after Stimson Lumber Company's DeArmond mill site, which sits in the center of the land, closed in 2007, and two years after BNSF filed to abandon the line.

Pulling all rails and ties from City Park to Mill River near Huetter could take around a month.

The abandonment, which means that train transportation no longer needs to be provided, will open the doors for new owners to transform the railroad land.

Here's what could happen:

First up, the city will gain ownership of a couple block stretch from City Park, near the skateboard park, to north of Mullan Avenue. The property was actually given to the city in 2004 by the federal government, with the railroad granted an easement. With the abandonment, all of it will go to the city. What could go there is yet to be determined. The city has talked about a possible new museum, or a facility for the Coeur d'Alene carousel that recently returned and is looking for a building in which to stay.

One thing is certain, Mayor Sandi Bloem said, whatever goes there will be public space.

The second portion,roughly 26 acres, runs north through the education corridor to Riverstone. It's a couple hundred feet wide, and is part of a more complex deal that has been in place for several years that aims to build out the North Idaho College campus corridor.

Once the line is abandoned, it will go to the federal Bureau of Land Management. In an agreement with the city, BLM would bring that land into ownership of Lake City Development Corp., the city's urban renewal board, through the North Idaho Centennial Trail Foundation.

BLM would get Prairie Trail, which was developed because the NICTF borrowed $2.5 million from LCDC to buy the $6 million parcel below market value.

Now, the NICTF would swap properties with BLM, and sell the corridor piece to LCDC for $4 million total, which includes the $2.5 million already fronted.

That means that LCDC could acquire that $6 million piece for around $4 million, and potentially sell off properties tied to it north of U.S. 95 in Riverstone to recoup more costs.

"It's been a long time coming, I guess to say, to get all the pieces together," Bloem said, adding that planning for what the property could one day become began well before her first day as mayor 10 years ago. "This is just one more part of what was needed to be done in order to make the best use of all the space."

Nobody is happy that the mills are gone, she added, and few would have predicted it back then, making the planning even more visionary.

And while Coeur d'Alene's locomotive history - one built on saw mills and trains chugging through town stacked with lumber - slips away, Bloem said the city wants to memorialize it along the property with public art, museums, signs and displays "to save the history for generations to come."

"It's the end of an era, it's an end of a time," said Larry Strobel, 74-year Coeur d'Alene resident, author and local history buff, on the last ties going out.

Still, change is inevitable, he said, especially since the train's demand, at least for hauling, is all but gone.

"I hate to see them change, there used to be way more railroad tracks," he said. "But it's really the only sensible thing to do, to remove them."

The third portion of land runs through Mill River, and BNSF could sell it to private developers over the coming years. The city has had discussions to extend an arm of the Prairie Trial along the Spokane River there, Gridley said, but that is still preliminary.

Gus Melonas, BNSF spokesman, didn't immediately return a phone call Tuesday.

BNSF has been given authority to begin removing the ties and rails, after which it would submit filings to officially complete the abandonment, Gridley said.