July 11, 2004: This Jefferson Highway turn stone has been placed on the interpretive walking trail at the Reed-Niland corner in Colo. Photo taken on day of dedication of renovated Niland station.
Earlier this month, the Osceola Sentinel reported the city council there supports marking the Jefferson Highway, or Pine to Palm, as an Iowa heritage byway. The centennial of the Jefferson Highway is next year. In Iowa, it followed US 69 south of Ames and US 65 north of Colo (and the Lincoln Highway in between).
I am not aware of any comprehensive log of the Jefferson Highway’s earliest route(s) in the state, unlike the Lincoln which has been well-documented in the past 20 years. Deviations from the current routes in Iowa that I can think of offhand would include:
- Old US 69 between Davis City and Leon
- Indianola Avenue, 7th Street, and Grand Avenue from the Polk-Warren county line to the intersection of Grand and Southeast 14th Street (see Jason Hancock’s Highways of Des Moines page and my US 69 page)
- the Lincoln Highway between Ames and Colo
- a route through Hubbard and then on S33
- D15 and S45 east of Iowa Falls
- S43 through Chapin, and then the pavement half a mile east of present US 65 that goes through Rockwell
More on this as the applications progress, hopefully.