Jun 12

Goldfield school to be demolished; sale Friday

Posted on Wednesday, June 12, 2024, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


June 10, 2024: The padding and backboards in the Goldfield gym date to before 2007, based on family video archives.

The Goldfield school will be torn down starting next month.

I got wind of this through an alumna of Goldfield High School, who saw on Facebook that someone saw the city council minutes about its demolition. The “notice to bidders” was in the Eagle Grove Eagle on April 18.

The school, built in 1956, closed as an elementary in 2008. Iowa Central Community College used some classroom space for a while but that duration is unknown.

While the demolition is to begin “no sooner than July 15,” what remains of what’s inside is to be emptied out Friday. If you have any interest in trophies from events in the north-central Iowa area from the 1960s and 1970s (and in some cases earlier!), the sale is from 12 to 4.

I wouldn’t be surprised if someone goes for the scoreboard at 12:01.

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Jun 10

An extended correction to the IA 39 page

Posted on Monday, June 10, 2024, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Good news! I was wrong … mostly.

On the page for IA 39, I said that present-day US 30 west of the west edge of Denison, following the railroad, was never part of the Lincoln Highway. Well, in the course of exhaustive research since I wrote that — see the Denison Highway Chronology — a correction is needed.

The original Lincoln Highway to Dow City stayed on the north side of the then-Chicago & North Western Railroad and Illinois Central Railroad. This included stairsteps through Arion that every source does differently. In the second half of 1925, IA 6 was graded on an alignment paralleling the railroads on the south side. The Denison Review on Nov. 10, 1926, said the C&NW overpass was completed. The state map was not updated until after paving through Crawford County was completed in 1929.

In 1960, US 30 was four-laned from Denison to the northeast corner of Dow City. In 1962, a relocation of US 30 over the railroad and Boyer River was completed. Chamberlin Drive is a piece of the 1925-62 route of 30.

It’s possible that the 1929 Lincoln Highway pavement, and very likely the 1925 bridges, stayed in place until one of those bridges near Dow City had to be closed because it couldn’t handle semis. That probably happened Oct. 28, 1980, based on articles in the Review on Oct. 25, 1980, and July 9, 1981. The concrete on the closed segment was extant at least through April 1982, according to aerial photos.

About a mile and a half of westbound 30 from the intersection southwest of the ethanol plant to Chamberlin Drive is on the roadbed of the Lincoln Highway built in 1925.

So there you have it. After it took a decade for me to update the IA 39 page (2008-18), it took another five years to correct a supplemental part.

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Jun 07

The kolach inflation index

Posted on Friday, June 7, 2024, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

For the first time in five years, St. Ludmila’s Catholic Church in Cedar Rapids is having a real kolach festival.

There was no celebration in 2020 or 2021 (but there were sales), and 2022 was somewhat but not quite normal.

According to Gazette archives* and the festival’s Facebook page, the kolaches were $10 a dozen in 2016, $12 a dozen in 2019, $15 a dozen in June 2022, and $16 a dozen in September 2022, with the half-dozens being half that. In 2022 there was a bonus sale before the defunct St. Ludmila school was torn down in 2023, and at that time, a volunteer told the Gazette the cost of filling had gone up 23%.

For 2024, the kolaches are a whopping $18 a dozen, $9 for a half-dozen, or $2 apiece. Is it a steep jump? Yes. Is it going to stop me from buying some, assuming I remember and they’re not out? Of course not.

*Advantage Preservation is missing the entire Gazette archives from 2017, 2018, and the first three months of 2019, something I found out the hard way. 🙁
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Jun 05

Des Moines’ Grand-Fleur intersection undergoing big change

Posted on Wednesday, June 5, 2024, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The intersection of Fleur Drive (originally SW 21st Street) and Grand Avenue on the west side of downtown Des Moines had a history in the state highway system. Fleur was the main way for downtown traffic to get to the south side and airport. For 35 years, IA 123 ran south from Grand to Army Post Road (see Jason Hancock’s Highways of Des Moines page).

Now that Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway has taken the place as the primary connection, the city of Des Moines is moving forward with a project to reshape the intersection. It’s part of a larger sanitary/storm sewer separation project originally proposed at the end of 2020. Stories: Des Moines press release (with video), KCCI, Des Moines Register (via AOL).

For decades, this area has been where Grand Avenue changes from two-way to one-way traffic, with Locust Street handling eastbound. Grand and Locust will be converted to two-ways over to 15th Street, the west side of the Western Gateway Park. Fleur will flow directly into Locust with no connection to Grand. The space immediately east of Des Moines’ Central Campus school will be turned into green space.

In a related project, the westbound lanes of MLK Parkway on the south side of downtown, which were only about 20 years old, were torn up and repaved for sewer separation.

The Grand/Fleur intersection was certainly not “obscure”, as a city of Des Moines engineer Steven Naber says in the video, but it’s much less prominent today.

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Jun 03

Springville interchange still four years out

Posted on Monday, June 3, 2024, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

It has been more than a decade since the US 151-X20 intersection at Springville gained notoriety as a crash-prone spot. It’s been five years since upgraded warning signs were placed there. A long-proposed interchange will not be built for another four years.

And yet, there are complaints about upgrading it. KCRG found someone at the public meeting last month who wants speed cameras instead. (However, thanks to the Iowa Legislature’s advance in the war on them this year, such cameras would only be able to issue warnings.)

The interchange would wipe out the bank and the Casey’s at the intersection, as well as some houses on the south side of 151. In addition, old 151 would be closed on the west side of town, with an access road only for the quarry.

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May 31

The sign of ‘Freedom’

Posted on Friday, May 31, 2024, at 11:00 AM by Jeff

I wrote something last week that starts with something very much in my zone but goes a little beyond it. I wouldn’t suggest extrapolating it too much into my thinking of things.

It got picked up by the Iowa Capital Dispatch, too, albeit with a different headline.

As I make clear in the caption, the image is a photo illustration, but it’s not too far off from what the real thing will look like.

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May 28

South Page to resume sending students to Clarinda

Posted on Tuesday, May 28, 2024, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

South Page will be sending students in grades 7-12 to Clarinda in the fall.

According to both an article on KMA and Clarinda’s report of a March 19 work session, South Page will “tuition out” its upper grades to Clarinda. True whole-grade sharing could come in the 2025-26 school year. The two districts will share a superintendent who will spend four days a week in Clarinda and one in College Springs.

South Page had partial-day sharing with Clarinda until 2022, when the latter abruptly ended the agreement. South Page then entered a partial-day sharing agreement with Bedford for 2022-23, then tuitioned out grades 9-12 for the whole day in the school year just concluded.

South Page had a certified enrollment of 197.3 for 2023-24.

At South Page’s April meeting, a reference in the minutes is made to the Page County Fair Board and the football bleachers. Presumably this would be about selling them.

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May 24

Orient-Macksburg could dissolve

Posted on Friday, May 24, 2024, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Iowa’s next school dissolution could happen next year.

The Creston News-Advertiser reported in mid-May that Orient-Macksburg students did a presentation on the possibilities for the tiny district and recommended whole-grade sharing with Nodaway Valley. KSIB radio reported that at a May 20 meeting would provide a chance for the public to weigh in.

At that meeting, dissolution appears to have replaced sharing as a very likely option. Iowa Starting Line reported that, with more than half of its student body open-enrolled out, state funding was taking a massive hit. Fundraisers would not plug the $500,000 minimum budget hole (per year, before inflation).

Contrary to the Iowa Starting Line story, a dissolution vote would only take place in the dissolving district. Surrounding districts will have a say in what areas they would be willing to take before that vote happens. If a district’s board is disinclined to take territory, the remaining space would be orphaned and the state education director would involuntarily attach land to a bordering district. See, most recently, the Gladbrook-Reinbeck saga.

Orient-Macksburg athletics have been in flux this decade. A longtime sharing agreement with Creston was ended by O-M in 2021 and the district switched to Nodaway Valley.

The Orient school building, from 1913, is one of the 10 oldest active school buildings in the state.

Should the district dissolve, I believe the cleanest solution would be to send the Adair County portion to Nodaway Valley, the Madison County portion to Winterset, and the Union County portion to Creston. Just don’t do what Clearfield did.

Speaking of Clearfield: Hi, Ringgold County IAGenWeb, that’s a swell picture of the Clearfield school! Do you know who took it?

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May 20

My trivia night with Iowa PBS

Posted on Monday, May 20, 2024, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Where are both Captain James T. Kirk and Thomas Jefferson key to a trivia quest? In Iowa, of course!

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May 17

Iowa Valley Scenic Byway episode now online

Posted on Friday, May 17, 2024, at 12:00 PM by Jeff

Iowa PBS’ “Road Trip Iowa” series rolls on with an episode that visits Tama County, the Lincoln Cafe in Belle Plaine, and the Amana Colonies. It’s the Iowa Valley Scenic Byway and more.

There’s even a segment in Vining, where residents give a guide in pronouncing their Bohemian names.

Watch to the very end.

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