Feb 23

US 71 to replace IA 196 in Sac County; IA 471 coming

Posted on Monday, February 23, 2015, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


September 17, 2007: Now it’s really the end of IA 196.

The route of US 71 in Iowa will undergo a significant change in 2015 and a new state highway will be created.

Among the DOT’s public lettings for Jan. 21 was a “traffic signs” project in Sac County. US 71 will replace all of IA 196 and then follow the US 20 expressway to Early. IA 175 will be the sole signed highway through Lake View. Old 71 between 175 and 20 will become IA 471. This number, obviously intended to create a connection to the old number just like Business 61 through Davenport is IA 461, is the highest to be signed immediately as such, and replaces 428 as Iowa’s highest signed number outside the 900s.

(If 471 is going to stick around, I wish a two-digit number had been recycled instead, like 36 since it was there for Wall Lake, or IA 39 extended east and north from Odebolt.)

This is only the third change to US 71 easily visible on a state map since World War II, following the Clarinda and Storm Lake bypasses. Minor changes affected the Arnolds Park, Lyman, and Grant areas.

Signs on US 20 that are less than three years old must be replaced to reflect the route changes. All IA 471 shields, and the markers on the BGSs, will be oblong instead of square. The change will decrease the total National Highway System mileage in Iowa, since the east-west segment will be dropped, and give 71 its second expressway segment in Iowa.

Iowa Highway 196 was born April 29, 1935, to maintain a Sac City-Carroll connection when US 71 was moved to run south from (old) US 20 near Early. Its exact date of death is unknown at this time.

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Feb 21

And we’ll never beat Royals (Royals)

Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2015, at 10:02 AM by Jeff

Colo, Iowa — After running out to an early 19-9 lead, turnovers in the fourth quarter contributed to the North Tama girls’ basketball team’s season-ending loss to Colo-NESCO, 42-39.

Between the middle of the second and middle of the fourth quarters, the Royals outscored the Redhawks 28-12. The Royals had eight three-pointers to the Redhawks’ one. NT missed an attempt to tie the game in the final seconds.

North Tama finishes 20-4, with three of those losses coming against Colo-NESCO. (So the Royals, who will be angling for their third state tournament appearance in a row Monday, better win the whole dang thing. Or at least not lose to Kee High.)

Stories: Ames Tribune, Waterloo Courier

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Feb 20

Van Buren, Harmony talk sharing

Posted on Friday, February 20, 2015, at 10:01 AM by Jeff


September 10, 2010: Cornerstone of the Bonaparte school building. Note centennial coming up.

The Harmony school district in southeast Iowa, a very early runner among non-geographic names, is exploring whole-grade sharing with Van Buren. KTVO had a story earlier this week. The Ottumwa Courier had a story two months ago and listed six options being considered. That list was not exclusive to Van Buren, but all six resulted in the closure of Harmony Elementary in Bonaparte. However, more recent developments leave the possibility of it remaining open.

Harmony Junior-Senior High School is on J40 half a mile west of the Lee-Van Buren county line. Its elementary is in Bonaparte. Van Buren High School is in Keosauqua, Iowa’s third-smallest county seat. There’s also an elementary school in Douds-Leando very near the end of the soon-to-be-decommissioned IA 98, but fifth and sixth grades are moving out. Stockport was closed in 2011.

Harmony’s enrollment has declined by 20% over the past decade. Van Buren had a bump in enrollment after absorbing Fox Valley in the mid-2000s, but has declined steadily since. Harmony and Central Lee were together in football in 2012 and 2013 but Harmony fielded an 8-man team this year. It did not go well.

Should the two districts engage in whole-grade sharing in the future, the combined area would be the largest in Iowa with one high school.

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Feb 19

Fort Brule, South Dakota

Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2015, at 10:19 AM by Jeff

Just a few miles from the Big Sioux River and Iowa’s westernmost point lies a marker recalling the late American frontier. (Photo taken July 20, 2012. That’s not a color problem, it’s a drought problem.)

Fort Brule was established in 1861 but abandoned less than a decade later, as this Sioux Falls Argus-Leader article from 1954 explains. (That link also includes the text on the monument.) Iowa soldiers served at the fort one year. This marker is on SD 50 about a mile and a half east of SD 11 (old US 77).

This marker reminds us that while Iowa became a state in 1846, the western reaches of the state and points farther west did not see extensive white settlement until decades later.

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Feb 18

Iowa hospitality for the Sooners

Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2015, at 10:09 AM by Jeff

Maddie Manning, the Ankeny player who stiffed Iowa State to play basketball for Oklahoma, had one thing she could still bring to the table even after tearing both ACLs in two years: Her family goes all-out to treat the OU women’s team to a big Iowa meal. It’s the biggest salad bowl you’ll ever see, and just listen to the rave review about the sweet corn.

The Cyclones were only slightly less generous Tuesday night, sacrificing a double-digit lead in the second half only to fight back and then win in overtime. (It’s the least we can do after gift-wrapping those wins in football and men’s basketball in Norman.)

If the embedded video doesn’t work, the link is here.

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Feb 17

New area code for eastern Nebraska

Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2015, at 10:24 AM by Jeff

Nebraska went 60 years with two area codes, but years after an assignment frenzy in other states, three new digits are coming to the eastern part of the state: 531. That includes the entire part of the state bordering Iowa.

Unlike the splits in Iowa, 531 is an overlay of 402, meaning that no current phone numbers will change, and the entire area has to do 10-digit dialing for everything. I think splits are the better way to go, but I can imagine the overlay was preferable to a Lincoln-Omaha fight over who got to keep the old digits.

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Feb 16

KIMT cuts weather map area in half

Posted on Monday, February 16, 2015, at 10:10 AM by Jeff

After I wrote last week about KWWL eliminating some counties on its weather map, Austin Draude e-mailed to say that KIMT has done the same thing. The reduction in the Mason City CBS affiliate’s area sometime late last year*, though, is more drastic.

KIMT previously covered a 23-county area (and for a time, 24) in Iowa and Minnesota, as still seen on this image, from Algona to Decorah. But if you watch an online weather-cast today**, it’s down to the 12 counties of the official Mason City-Rochester Nielsen DMA, which is just outside the national top 150 markets. The only difference between it and KAAL now is the latter keeps Steele County MN (Owatonna), although I bet both signals are still accessible over the air there.

At last check, KTTC, the area’s NBC station, has more of Iowa covered despite being farther north and east (and based in Minnesota). But the periphery of the former area, including Franklin and Kossuth counties, loses the double (or triple) coverage it once had from some stations.

*Looks like sometime between Oct. 22 and Nov. 11; pay attention to the shaded counties in the latter although an outline has the old map.

**The weblink is dated to May 12, 2014, but apparently is updated every day. This tweet (with a dead link) indicates the station did a graphics update in July 2009.

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Feb 13

IA 3’s last blocks change in Dubuque

Posted on Friday, February 13, 2015, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


April 18, 2006: This part of 9th Street in Dubuque is now two-way.

Remember this story from a while back about Dubuque getting rid of some one-way streets? That happened Aug. 25.

That conversion of east-west streets affected US 52 and IA 3 from the one-way pair of Central and White streets to the US 61/151 freeway. Now IA 3’s east end and west beginning are both on 9th Street — with a catch. The freeway ramps don’t change, reflecting the old one-way pair with the southbound exit/northbound entrance at 11th Street and the northbound exit/southbound entrance at 9th Street. A transfer of jurisdiction with Dubuque was passed earlier this week, but because of the split locations of the ramps, the state is turning over only one lane (the new eastbound lane) of 11th Street between White and US 61, and only one lane of 9th (the new westbound lane) between White and Central. The state will take over both lanes of the two blocks of White between 9th and 11th.

In the end, this will be a temporary change for both routes. The entire city-street portion of US 52 in Dubuque will be turned over to the city, and IA 3 truncated to around the IA 32/former IA 386 junction, when the Southwest Arterial is completed.

Lane miles are very important measurements, and the very refined nature of this transaction shows that, however weird it may be. (Just another reason to get rid of one-way streets!)

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Feb 12

What did Iowa do to you, “Agent Carter”?

Posted on Thursday, February 12, 2015, at 10:14 AM by Jeff

Previously in Marvel’s “Agent Carter,” we had a 30-second scene where Peggy Carter met Dorothy Underwood from Iowa, who came to New York City to be a professional dancer.

Now we know her name isn’t Dorothy Underwood, and she isn’t from Iowa. She is, in fact, a Russian trained from a young age to be a ruthless spy/assassin in the Black Widow program (cf. Scarlett Johansson’s character in “The Avengers”). Perhaps we should be glad the writers didn’t name-drop a town in this case, although there is an Underwood, Iowa…

Between that, an ex-agent of SHIELD who was killed before the first commercial break, and a “valedictorian in Iowa City” targeted by HYDRA, the Hawkeye State isn’t doing too well in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

In the comics at least, the character Hawkeye is from Waverly, but that has not been established in the MCU. And then somehow Clutier (!!!) got dropped into the comics as a town full of Nazi sympathizers (!!!). I was going to say the title of this blog post was tongue in cheek but now I’m not so sure!

Posted in Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on What did Iowa do to you, “Agent Carter”?
Feb 11

Hamburg agrees to Nishnabotna grade split

Posted on Wednesday, February 11, 2015, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The continuing cohabitational saga of the Farragut and Hamburg school districts had a partial resolution last week, as the Hamburg school board agreed to Farragut’s proposal of having the junior high in Farragut and keeping kindergarten through sixth grades in Hamburg. (The former high school building in Hamburg closes no matter what.) Interestingly, that special-session vote was 2-1 in a five-member board, qualifying for a quorum but not a majority approval. Compare the KMA story from earlier in the week when the decision was still up in the air.

As both stories note, an agreement on who goes where does not guarantee a future existence of the Nishnabotna school district. Both still have visits from the state School Budget Review Committee ahead.

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