This is an explainer for pages about the routes that made up Iowa’s 1920 highway system. It’s designed to augment, but definitely not replace, Jason Hancock’s and my websites.
- “In 1920, they knew it as”: Did the highway follow, or incorporate a piece of, an existing auto trail? “Existing” is based on Huebinger’s Automobile and Good Road Atlas of Iowa and the Iowa Registered Highway Routes, 1914-1925 map created by the Iowa DOT in 1986.
- “We know it as”: What is this route’s descendant(s)? This will be given in the most general of terms, usually close to the “linear” descendant(s), i.e. this route became this route became this route, regardless of alignment change.
- Let’s get granular: A route using modern roads, from dirt to four-lane, that hews as close as possible to what someone would have driven in the 1920s.
- The most important sources here will be the 1914 county maps (with a certification date of Feb. 14, how romantic), late 1930s aerial photos, and the oldest-available blueprints from the Iowa DOT archives.
- Known dead ends or notable frontage roads will be pointed out. The overall listing may end up discontinuous.
- I will try to pinpoint county courthouses if their location is relevant to the route.
- I realize this would be better as “show” rather than “tell” but I’m not versed in how to draw, or publish, a 300-mile-long multi-multi-turn route on Google Maps, let alone one that draws lines where there aren’t roads anymore.
- Sometimes, vagueness for clarity’s sake will be required. For example, IA 3 (now IA 2) has so many nips and tucks that segments a mile long or more have been wiped off the map. When written as if a number follows the current road, an assumption of “within half a mile or so” may be needed in the non-flat areas of the state.
- “Abandoned” and “vacated” will be used pretty much interchangeably to describe a road that was there but isn’t anymore. (In my view, strictly speaking, the former indicates the road is closed but remains visible, while the latter indicates all traces have been removed.) If it’s on a section or half-section line I might explain it in relation to the present-day road it aligned with.
- Nearly nothing in 1920 ran along a railroad right-of-way (unless the railroad itself was parallel to a section line), so when such an alignment is included, it could mean I don’t have enough pre-1930s information to be more specific.
- Within communities, I might suss out a “more likely than not” route that would cover a now-bypassed business district, with supporting evidence from late-1930s aerial photos.
- Related routes: Numerical replacements, routes it either gobbled up or got gobbled up by, spurs created because of an alignment change (even if long after the 1920 version was renumbered), etc. For the more important routes that became four-lane corridors in the last 30 years, this might become needlessly pedantic. (But being needlessly pedantic is what this site is all about! — Ed.)
- See also: Usually links to city-specific highway histories.
- Endpoints: Where, based on the information I have available, and as specifically as possible, did this route begin and end in 1920? Some of these will require more explanation and ambiguity than others.
- Along the route/Points of interest: A grab bag of stuff related to the route. The definition of “related” is up to the narrator.