Looking at state maps in the early 1970s, it seems clear-cut. IA 333 runs from the Fremont/Page county line to 71, there’s a secret designation for the route to College Springs, and the absence of a 333 marker east of there on state maps is a design choice.
And then along come the 1972 county map, and early 1970s state traffic count books, to announce, “Every word of what you just said was wrong.”* Well, not every word, but surprisingly, a lot of them!
1972 Page County map showing 333 turning north, instead of running straight east-west to US 71. IA 999 is unmarked.
As it turns out, the line running from the “stub road” to College Springs east to US 71 was in fact not IA 333, but IA 999 — 333 is acting as a long spur to College Springs. This is what all the Highway Commission files say, anyway, although the Clarinda Herald-Journal certainly seemed to think it was the other way around. Without a photo from the time of the signs at the intersection, I doubt the actual situation is knowable today.
1972 traffic book (both)
On May 15, 1974, the route descriptions were revised again, and 999 officially, again, became the spur into College Springs. IA 333 was extended straight across on the former 999 east to 71, and indeed a marker appears there on the 1975 state map. This change was necessary because of the decommissioning of IA 208, the north-south road running from IA 2 to Blanchard via Coin, weeks later. Because the mile from US 59 to the county line was not part of the state system, a 333 that ended in College Springs would have become an orphan route disconnected from the rest.
By the mid-1970s, Page County was desperate to get something, anything, done. It volunteered to the newly christened Iowa Department of Transportation to take over 333, 343, and 999 as long as the state paved 333. The same type of deal had been done for 208. At the end of March 1976, according to the Des Moines Register, the DOT finally agreed to unload a road that had been neglected for years (citing, repeatedly, low traffic counts) for a $5.2 million construction project … more than four years later.
On August 29, 1980, the first concrete was poured on IA 333 in Page County. In the final days of that year, 333 was both paved and decommissioned. Also decommissioned was IA 999, three decades after it first appeared, turned over separately to the town and county.
The story of Iowa’s highest-numbered highway was over. The story of its parent wasn’t.