{"id":8141,"date":"2016-12-20T10:00:16","date_gmt":"2016-12-20T16:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=8141"},"modified":"2016-12-15T00:44:12","modified_gmt":"2016-12-15T06:44:12","slug":"the-final-countdown-4-12-meriden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2016\/12\/the-final-countdown-4-12-meriden\/","title":{"rendered":"The Final Countdown: 4 1\/2. Meriden"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The trio of Meriden, Cleghorn, and Marcus were once served by individual spur routes from IA 5 (now IA 3) until the highway was moved closer to the railroad. Today, <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/ends\/ia143.html\">IA 143 <\/a>is the only number that remains, because downtown Marcus was still a mile off the road and then 143 was extended northward later.<\/p>\n<p>I thought I was able to mark the threesome off the list back in June 2004. They certainly look &#8220;on&#8221; the highway, right? But just to be sure, I checked the city maps online. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iowadot.gov\/maps\/msp\/citypdf\/CLEGHORN-ci.pdf\">Cleghorn&#8217;s southern border is IA 3<\/a>, but <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iowadot.gov\/maps\/msp\/citypdf\/MERIDEN-ci.pdf\">then I saw the dotted line for Meriden<\/a>, implying that the city limits did <em>not<\/em> reach the highway. Then I looked on Google Street View and saw the arrow pointing <em>to<\/em> the town rather than announcing city limits.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-8142\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/FC_MeridenSign.jpg\" width=\"940\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/FC_MeridenSign.jpg 940w, http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/FC_MeridenSign-300x127.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 940px) 100vw, 940px\" \/><br \/>\n<em><strong>October 3, 2016:<\/strong> Somewhere in that green space is the official city boundary. Perhaps a rail siding was removed or, more likely, the highway pavement shifted northward. This photo enlarges in a new window\/tab.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>If I had completed my travels and then saw this, I would have been some combination of upset and resigned, because it&#8217;s not a short jaunt over there. Fortunately, I could incorporate a visit into this last trip with little difficulty.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-8143\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/FC_Meriden.jpg\" width=\"920\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/FC_Meriden.jpg 920w, http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/FC_Meriden-300x130.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 920px) 100vw, 920px\" \/><em>Downtown Meriden.\u00a0Behind the camera is the telephone company, which aside from the elevator was the only place cars were parked in the middle of a weekday afternoon.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>For good measure, I also took the time to go <em>into<\/em> Cleghorn rather than just past it, and photograph the school that was closed recently. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lemarssentinel.com\/story\/2330847.html\">MMC got to keep a high school in Marcus<\/a> after a tenuous dance <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lemarssentinel.com\/story\/2139064.html\">with Remen-Union to the west<\/a>, but <a href=\"http:\/\/siouxcityjournal.com\/news\/remsen-marcus-schools-prepare-for-cuts-after-tabling-sharing-agreement\/article_02514325-9ddf-5294-8b9d-4ff22a380ac4.html\">Cleghorn Elementary was shuttered as a side effect<\/a>. There are now only seven high schools along IA 3 west of I-35.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The trio of Meriden, Cleghorn, and Marcus were once served by individual spur routes from IA 5 (now IA 3) until the highway was moved closer to the railroad. Today, IA 143 is the only number that remains, because downtown &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2016\/12\/the-final-countdown-4-12-meriden\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[18,16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iowa-miscellaneous","category-sequences","category-trip-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8141"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8146,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8141\/revisions\/8146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}