Mar 22

Women’s work in the Iowa Highway Commission (1)

Posted on Monday, March 22, 2021, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


This clip of a blueprint for a project on IA 24 in New Hampton in 1964 is emblematic of the style used in Iowa Highway Commission documents from the mid-1920s to 1970s. Pre-1925 documents have more embellishment of some labels. Notice old US 63 on Pleasant Hill Street; the “oil station” building is there today.

“Women and Girls Help in Commission Drafting Rooms”, Iowa Highway Commission Service Bulletin, July 1918

Nearly twenty young women are in active training to do drafting work in the drafting room of the State Highway Commission. So many of the young men trained to this work have been called to war and so many sent out to do actual field work that it became necessary to take radical means to keep the work of this important department in pace with the needs.

W.T. Ide, of the manual training department of East High school in Des Moines, was secured for the vacation period to train a number of young women to do this work. As soon as an individual shows proficiency, she is given actual drawing work. Many more applications have come in than can be accommodated, showing great interest in this new line of work for women.

The success of the experiment so far has been such that is is freely predicted that much of the work of the drafting room will continue to be done by women.

(Transcribed from the PDF digitized on Google.)

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Mar 19

Photo 38,000

Posted on Friday, March 19, 2021, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

September 26, 2018

Well, they can’t all be winners. This is on the Kansas Turnpike at the somewhat recently reconstructed I-70/I-470 split on the east side of Topeka, on a weeklong vacation to the Dallas-Fort Worth area that included significant portions of US 81 and US 67, in addition to every remaining interstate in the “DFW Metroplex”.

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Mar 17

When the calendar stopped

Posted on Wednesday, March 17, 2021, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

On Sunday, March 8, 2020, in the final game of the regular season, the Iowa State women spoiled Baylor’s perfect conference record in front of 10,000 people at Hilton Coliseum. It would be the last collegiate sporting event in Iowa for months.

On Tuesday, March 10, 2020, Cedar Rapids’ SaPaDaPaSo parade scheduled for the following week was cancelled. The following day, the St. Patrick’s Day march between Davenport and Rock Island was called off.

On Thursday, March 12, 2020, the Iowa State men’s basketball season came to a dismal but scheduled end as the first of two games that night for the Big 12 Conference Tournament. The Big Ten already wasn’t playing. Hours earlier, the IHSAA announced limited attendance for Friday’s games of the boys’ state basketball tournament.

On Friday, March 13, 2020, at approximately 10:10 PM, Ankeny beat Waukee 78-70 for the Class 4A boys’ state basketball championship. It would be the last high school sporting event in Iowa for 95 days, until Colfax-Mingo and Tri-County opened baseball season in Des Moines.

On Sunday, March 15, 2020, I was called and told that if I wanted to use my work computer instead of a laptop, I needed to go get it. Now.

On Tuesday, March 17, 2020, Gov. Kim Reynolds ordered closures of restaurants and other businesses across the state.

Posted in Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on When the calendar stopped
Mar 15

Part of IA 17 closing for 15 months

Posted on Monday, March 15, 2021, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

A project to move IA 17 off E41 east of Boone, which originally came to public light five years ago, starts turning dirt today. The highway closes today with a detour right by the area. According to the press release, it will remain closed until July 2022.

Construction will include an overpass of the railroad/E41, an extension of S Avenue, and paving a mile of 200th Street. Concurrent closure of the railroad crossing at R Avenue will break the Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway route.

There is an important reason to get the project done by mid-summer: The Farm Progress Show is scheduled to be at the Boone site two months later. If there is one, that is.

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Mar 12

Catchup on stateline pages

Posted on Friday, March 12, 2021, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


July 24, 2019: I-80 meets I-29 right as it comes into Iowa. Technically, this gantry is on the Nebraska side of the Missouri River. Ahead is the current highway welcome sign.

Some members of the Iowa Legislature see a need for new state welcome signs. I am sure a substantial majority of the current signs, though maybe not quite all of them, are in my pictures, even if only in the background. I decided to look up what I had, only to discover I forgot to upload a few pages for border-to-border highways for months. I wasn’t going to take the time to cross-check them all (some file modifications may have just been code cleanup), so here’s a list of what I know I added photos to in the past couple years.

  • I-80: Eastbound pictures approaching I-29 from 2019. This was the page that tipped me off to the lack of upload. All of my 2006 pictures show the original configuration, now replaced with double-five-lane Missouri River bridges and big flyover ramps.
  • US 52: New Mississippi River bridge
  • US 61: Video frame of old Des Moines River bridge; construction document proving original crossing was on railroad bridge
  • I-280: I-80 approaching east end in Illinois
  • US 6: Speculation about 1920 system highways at the Ak-Sar-Ben and Arsenal bridges
  • US 55: Updated research about its south end in Davenport
  • US 77: One picture of westbound Gordon Drive as it intersects Wesley Parkway

“Fields of Opportunities” isn’t officially the state slogan anymore, but “This Is Iowa” isn’t really workable as a greeting. My suggestion: “Open fields, open roads, open hearts”. I think it sounds inviting.

Posted in Highway Miscellaneous, Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Catchup on stateline pages
Mar 10

Mocking Iowa’s 2020s congressional districts

Posted on Wednesday, March 10, 2021, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Normally, at this time of a year ending in 1, the Legislative Services Agency would be hard at work carrying out the nation’s best mapping exercise. This will be the fifth time the LSA has drawn up boundaries for Iowa’s congressional and legislative districts.

It’s not a normal year. It’s so abnormal, in fact, that it’s running headlong into constitutional stipulations that demand creation of districts on a timetable that cannot be met.

To fill the gap, I played a “redistricting game” similar to the one I did for the Register in 2011, using 2019 census estimates issued last year. Ironically, because of the delay in tabulation, we’ll get July 2020 estimates (May 4) before the April 2020 actuals (TBA).

Unlike 2011, though, I did this entirely manually. Things to keep in mind:

  • The LSA will have more up-to-date numbers and more powerful tools. I’m just a map geek with a spreadsheet.
  • Iowa’s redistricting rules factor in district perimeter length. I cannot be that fancy, but I can say “Does this look like a map the LSA would plausibly create?”
  • It is surprisingly difficult to get raw data of general election totals. The files at the secretary of state’s website are PDFs. They can be converted, but there are also multiple subcategories I don’t want. Viewing results is easy, downloading datasets is hard.
  • Staring at this list emphasizes how absurdly county names are tilted toward the first half of the alphabet.
  • I have to use a spreadsheet program that acts differently from Numbers ’09 and can be downright aggravating at times.
  • Iowa does not have any counties with a population between 52,000 (Warren) and 92,000 (Pottawattamie).
  • Polk and Dallas counties, kept together, were nearly 2/3 of a district in 2010 but nearly 3/4 in 2019. Adding 93,000 people will do that — and that number will get them three more state House seats alone.
  • If Iowa still had six congressional districts, logistically it would be nearly impossible to maintain whole-county units. Polk County alone would be 93% of a district. The law would have to be rewritten.
  • Palo Alto County had precisely 5,000 votes cast in the 2020 general election.
  • This academic exercise in no way prevents me from mocking (heh) people who churn out mock drafts for weeks on end.

Armed with two things that can provide hours of entertainment — maps and finite data sets — I set out to create potential Iowa congressional districts for the 2020s. Then I inadvertently created Ashley Hinson’s worst nightmare.

Continue reading →

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Mar 08

Linn Grove bridge to be replaced

Posted on Monday, March 8, 2021, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The bridge across the Little Sioux River just north of Linn Grove will be replaced in 2022, the Storm Lake Times reports. The state will chip in about half the $2 million replacement cost.

The bridge dates back to 1940, and its decorative edging and lack of shoulders is appropriate for the period. It was built when IA 264, originally part of IA 10, was straightened north of town and replaced one built in 1900.

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Mar 05

2021 Lincoln Highway conference cancelled

Posted on Friday, March 5, 2021, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


June 13, 2011: Route 66 Visitors Center at the Joliet Area Historical Museum, in a city I will not be visiting this summer.

The 2021 Lincoln Highway Association conference, which was going to be in Joliet after the 2020 conference set for there was cancelled, has also been cancelled. The 2022 conference remains set for Joliet, with Sacramento to follow.

It took until receiving my issue of the Lincoln Highway Forum to know about this for sure. The decision had to have been made in late January or early February.

Sigh.

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Mar 03

Why does ‘Nomadland’ use old license plates?

Posted on Wednesday, March 3, 2021, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

In the embedded tweet is a poster for the streaming movie Nomadland. It should take about five seconds to see where I’m going with this post. The states are ordered by their admission to the Union, which is a neat thing that could stand to be used more widely. I’d absolutely endorse this order for roll-calls at national political conventions.

As far as I know, the movie is not a period piece. So why are many of the license plates depicted decades old? From what I can see:

  • Iowa’s is, of course, the 1986 series with the “86” taken off the upper right corner. The font is just a hair off — the “D” is a little different and looks like an inverse of Michigan in the same row; it should look more like Connecticut’s.
  • Illinois’ is the 1980s/1990s version.
  • Wisconsin’s design also dates back to the 1980s. The state actually is using the same style today but went to black, seven-character plates in 2017.
  • Nebraska’s is from a short period in the 1980s.
  • Georgia retains the 1990 label at the top.
  • Ohio is its 2003 Bicentennial version.
  • Minnesota and the Dakotas, and maybe a couple others, aren’t embossed but the vast majority of the rest clearly are. However, embossed plates began to disappear in the mid-2000s.
  • Typography for some, including Idaho, absolutely screams 1980s.
  • Oklahoma is a late 1990s-through-2010 design.
  • Other states’ plates have website addresses on them, so they’re obviously somewhat recent if not current.

A potential explanation for this that comes to mind is something of a depressing one: License plates of the 2020s are too similar to each other. Aside from Illinois’ red, Iowa and surrounding states now use black lettering. Many, many states — including, as seen on the poster, Kansas and Washington — use some version of a light blue gradient/graphic background. Iowa’s white-on-blue 1986 series was clean and distinctive, something that cannot be said for today’s design.

Another possibility pops up with a study of the Wyoming plate, which does not include the famous cowboy silhouette. That symbol, it turns out, is a trademark of the state of Wyoming. Maybe there’s something about infringement going on. On the other hand, it’s not consistent, as Kentucky’s “Unbridled Spirit” and South Dakota’s “Great Faces. Great Places.” slogans are just fine.

I will give the promotions/design team credit for using actual plates as the basis for the “NMDLND” letters. It’s just really weird that they went with an assortment of eras.

Posted in License Plates | Comments Off on Why does ‘Nomadland’ use old license plates?
Mar 01

Lincoln Highway, Historic 20 get special designations

Posted on Monday, March 1, 2021, at 10:10 AM by Jeff


September 28, 2014: A painting of Youngville Station in Benton County, inside Youngville Station, at the now-interchange of US 30 and US 218.

The Historic 20 Route Association is Bryan Farr’s brainchild, and his decade of work has paid off: The Iowa DOT has approved the original route of US 20 as an auto trail. “Original route” makes some concessions to today’s roads, but by and large it’s pretty close to what one would have driven across Iowa in the late 1920s. Stories: Manchester Press, KCIM-AM, press release from the association (if that doesn’t work, here’s the Facebook page). Also, a KTIV story and video from last summer.

The Lincoln Highway in Iowa is part of the Lincoln Highway National Heritage Byway approved in January. Although the Lincoln ran coast to coast, the byway designation for now is only in Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois. Nebraska does not sign the 1913 Lincoln, but rather the paved version that hugs the Union Pacific Railroad and goes through Blair. Stories: Clinton Herald, WHBF, Raccoon Valley Radio. That application is through the hard work of Prairie Rivers of Iowa.

Nebraska’s Lincoln Highway Historic Byway Guide is available as a PDF.

In the past decade there has been wider recognition of historic highways in Iowa. Congratulations to those working to make that happen.

Posted in Highway Miscellaneous, Maps | Comments Off on Lincoln Highway, Historic 20 get special designations