KMA Radio was there for tiny Clearfield’s last day of school (and still using my picture for the story).
In addition to that, some other research has led to additions from western Iowa in my school district and building timeline. With the addition of Bayard in 2003, at least one town in Iowa has lost its school building every year since 1998.
October 11, 2002: Mileage sign on old US 20 (now County Road D20) leaving Webster City.
Bryan Farr of Massachusetts wants US 20, the longest US route in the country, to be celebrated as a famous, historic road. He’s created the Historic US Route 20 Association and this summer is traveling across the country on as much of its 1926 alignment as possible. That means when he gets to Iowa, he will be see almost nothing of the route as it is signed today. (The Early-Holstein route went through Galva until 1937.) He will travel segments that were still US 20 as late as the turn of this century, though.
The Worcester Telegram wrote about him and US 20 in Massachusetts.
Here’s a blog about his trip, but the Twitter and Instagram accounts are more up to date. (Let the record show that this is the first time I’ve linked to feeds from either. I’m an Internet fuddy duddy with a blog, and I’m OK with that.)
If you thought we didn’t have enough specialty plates in Iowa, here’s another one: The Boy Scouts of America. This is the announcement of its availability, BUT the state needs 500 applications before the series is created. (The short piece says nothing about the Girl Scouts, but that may be because no one asked yet.)
Notice that the image with the KWWL article is probably Photoshopped. The white background of the decal may or may not be what will appear, but the license plate letters themselves are embossed in light blue. Iowa has not embossed its plates or used that shade of blue for a decade.
The Iowa Supreme Court has put Waterloo in an interesting pickle. The Waterloo Courier (long article) and KWWL (short) both have stories. (Yes, that is former Rep. Dave Nagle as the plaintiffs’ lawyer.)
The court ruled that the city was wrong to sell old right-of-way on San Marnan Drive (actually a four-lane ROW, matching original plans for IA 412) for $1 to a developer without either offering it to the previous owners or opening it to competitive bidding.
The wrinkle in this is that the deal included relocating that part of San Marnan 70 feet to the south, and it’s already been done. The former ROW is now a staked-out grassy area, as you can see in the Courier story’s pictures.
This land deal started in mid-2011, and it looks like it’s not done yet, even though the area has already been changed.
After years now of talk and work, the Iowa DOT is down to two options for the IA 117/330/US 65 intersection area in Jasper County.
The interchange and J-turn plans now are substantially what they were last time, with the note that the northbound offramps do not include a traffic circle. The J-turn would not substantially affect surrounding land. The interchange would bisect the area between IA 117 and County Road F17 and force the removal of three farmsteads…
…farmsteads owned by a family that has been fighting the Marshalltown diagonal literally for generations.
Surely Cleverly noticed that some time ago, the DOT already extended turn lanes, added intersection warning signs, and dropped the speed limit, but it’s not enough. It is still No. 10 overall, and No. 3 for rural areas, on the state’s “Intersection Safety Improvement Candidate Location” list.
The public meeting will be June 3 in Baxter, and it’s notable for including a formal presentation, which isn’t done very often nowadays. It’s possible the DOT will be fighting its most public eminent-domain battle in some time.
Construction on the IA 100 extension has been going on for a while, but that can’t get in the way of a shovel-turning photo op.
Not many county roads are newly paved in Iowa nowadays, as counties try to save money any way they can. However, one segment in Allamakee County received just that treatment last year.
County Road A26, about six miles from the Minnesota border, was paved between IA 76 and the already-paved portion in Winneshiek County. The board of supervisors’ minutes from a year ago (PDF) mention closing the road, Bear Creek Drive, for paving.
The road appears on the Iowa state map (although still marked as gravel in the new 2014 version). It’s also “signed” on the county PDF map. Something notable about this road is that it is the way to Camp Tahigwa, about three miles west of IA 76.
KCCI has a story about a DOT study on turning the I-35/80 interchange with Hickman Road (US 6) from a diamond to a diverging diamond. On a diverging diamond, traffic temporarily switches sides of the road; there’s an explainer graphic in the video. All the interviews are with city officials, so that may be where the TV station got wind of what’s going on.
While the state hasn’t announced any plans for a diverging diamond at Hickman specifically, there are two others coming to the Des Moines metro area: One in Dallas County on the “Grand Prairie Parkway” (Alice’s Road extension) and one at First Street in Ankeny. The latter will be part of six-laning I-35 from that point north to the new Ankeny exit.
May 28, 2006 (eight[!] years ago tomorrow): North side of Northwood on US 65
Jason Hancock took a long trip in northern and northwestern Iowa on Memorial Day weekend to finish clinching every highway in the state. He mentioned that the mileage sign leaving Northwood, above, has been replaced with a Clearview version that uses the two-letter postal abbreviation for the cities. This is not the first appearance of that in the state, but/and it is widespread enough now that it’s almost certainly a permanent style change.
Note also that the sign, and its replacement, still include Faribault on the bottom line, even though US 65 now ends in Albert Lea. I believe it is the northernmost destination on a non-interstate sign (since the Twin Cities are all over I-35). Northwood is closer to Faribault than Iowa Falls, and just over 100 miles from the Minnesota State Capitol.
Charlie Bartos, a WWII veteran and longtime member of Traer United Methodist church, died May 7, less than 10 weeks before his 100th birthday.
His wife, Gladys, 95, died May 21.
They were married for 73 years.
