Sep 01

Historic Crawford County bridge irreparably damaged

Posted on Thursday, September 1, 2016, at 10:02 AM by Jeff

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August 8, 2016: Damage is evident on supports for the 180th Street Bridge over Beaver Creek west of Kiron.

A bowstring bridge in northern Crawford County has been closed to traffic since April and cannot be repaired, the Council Bluffs Nonpareil reports. It will have to be partially or entirely replaced.

The bridge is one of fewer than two dozen of its kind left in Iowa at the turn of the 21st century and one of six built in Crawford County in 1945. For more information see Bowstring Arch Bridges of Iowa (PDF), especially pages 18 and 22.

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Aug 31

St. Ansgar school will be torn down

Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


August 4, 2015: Detailed view of the brickwork at the southeast corner of the St. Ansgar Elementary building. (Photo also used in May 4 blog post.)

The St. Ansgar school district voted to sell its former elementary building to a local development group that plans to have it torn down, the Mitchell County Press-News reports (via the Mason City Globe Gazette). The building was the high school in town for much of the 20th century.

There was a proposal to save the building, but the city would have needed to take interim possession and that would have cost $100,000 for insurance alone, the article says. A community group then would have had to raise $3-5 million.

UPDATE: THIS DID NOT HAPPEN. The board changed its mind.

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Aug 30

J is for Jamaica

Posted on Tuesday, August 30, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


May 15, 2011: Former Panorama Elementary building in Jamaica.

The Panorama school district needed five different votes in the 1990s to reach a 60% supermajority on a bond issue to build a new elementary school, and it was finally dragged across the finish line in September 1996 (Guthrie Center Times). A significant reason for the repeated rejection likely was the fact that a new elementary would result in closing schools in both Jamaica and Linden.

Jamaica was the last building in use from the Yale-Jamaica-Bagley school district — the other two closed in 1989, when YJB and Panora-Linden merged — and the opening of a new elementary in Panora in 1999 was indeed the death knell.

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Aug 29

Tama County Lincoln Highway meeting tomorrow

Posted on Monday, August 29, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


Nov. 22, 2002: Lincoln Highway bridge in Tama. If you haven’t seen my fall 2002 photo project, it’s new to you!

Following a meeting in central Iowa about the Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway corridor, there will be a similar meeting in Tama County this week. It will be in the Tama County Courthouse in Toledo on Tuesday from 1:30 to 3 PM, according to this press release.

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Aug 26

Football is here

Posted on Friday, August 26, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

I should just do this at the start of every season.

It could be a long season for both North Tama, which has a new coach and is coming off the first winless season in 75 years, and Iowa State, which has a new coach after going 8-28 the last three years.

UPDATE: What happened to the statewide scoreboard show?

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Aug 25

New sign for Traer Memorial Building

Posted on Thursday, August 25, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

IF
August 19, 2016

The week before this year’s Winding Stairs Festival (Aug. 12-14), the old message sign on the side of the Traer Memorial Building (the manual removable-letter type) was replaced with a red-LED marquee message board.

Chelsea Savings Bank put an LED sign on its pole a few months ago (I think), and of course Farmers Savings Bank & Trust has had its scroll at the corner of Main and Second for approximately forever (but hasn’t carried birthday messages for 15 years 🙁 ).

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Aug 24

Original Schleswig school demolished

Posted on Wednesday, August 24, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

I knew the old school building in Schleswig was on borrowed time, but I hadn’t paid much attention beyond that, and it’s a long way over there. I finally got the chance to pass through Schleswig earlier this month (Aug. 8) and…

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Skunked twice in a month on opposite ends of the state!

(Many photos of the demolition available here.)

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Aug 23

Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway meeting Wednesday

Posted on Tuesday, August 23, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Prairie Rivers of Iowa is a nonprofit group promoting the Lincoln Highway as a Heritage Byway. It’s in the last year of developing a “Corridor Management Plan, or a long-term plan for the entire byway.” A meeting in State Center on Wednesday (Aug. 24) is open for the public to see plans relating to the corridor in the State Center/Colo area. I wonder how the Iowa DOT’s proposal for an at-grade intersection at the Reed-Niland corner (see also this blog link) factors into it.

(Link via Tri-County Times, which had a website redesign along with the Ames Tribune last Thursday and FOR THE LOVE OF TIM-BERNERS LEE DESIGNERS NEED TO STOP PUTTING PHOTOS WITH EVERY LINK ON HOMEPAGES.)

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Aug 22

Oldest part of Urbana school demolished

Posted on Monday, August 22, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

July 25, 2016

I need to get a picture of the 1912 Urbana school building sometime, I thought to myself. I pass it a lot, but usually at night, and it looks in fine shape, but you never know…

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oops

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Aug 19

Dennis Field ribbon cutting tonight

Posted on Friday, August 19, 2016, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

IF
August 14, 2016: The new concession stand/restroom building at Dennis Field in Traer replaces two separate buildings. New cable wiring between the bleachers and the football field, and also some turf care, have eliminated nearly all traces of the track that used to go around.

The renovations to Dennis Field in Traer — new concession stand/restrooms, new scoreboard, and a concrete walk around the north end zone to the bleachers — are very near completion. Tonight there will be a ribbon cutting and “kickoff night” with sports awards. A bit more information, along with a photo that shows the cutout word “Redhawks” above the scoreboard better than it appears when you see it from the bleachers, can be found here. (The article is really a repurposed press release from Chelsea Savings Bank, in probably its most prominent sign of competition with Farmers Savings Bank & Trust.)

North Tama’s first home football game of 2016 is Sept. 2 against BCLUW.

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