Jun 24

A note on Hampton-Dumont-CAL

Posted on Monday, June 24, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

I hope the superintendent of the district with the high school in Hampton won’t mind me lifting from the school’s November/December 2018 newsletter (PDF) regarding the status of naming things in light of CAL sending its junior and senior high students there. The superintendent says the Hampton-Dumont and CAL districts will keep their own identities because rebranding costs money.

So, for example, when we refer to the high school, it will be called Hampton-Dumont High School. For our activities like sports, music, drama, and FFA, we will be called Hampton-Dumont-CAL which recognizes students from both districts. We have seen many versions such as HD/CAL or Hampton-Dumont/CAL but to clarify, we are officially Hampton-Dumont-CAL.

This photo of a student committing to play softball at Grand View shows the existing Hampton-Dumont name and mascot (Bulldogs) in the gym and on a banner.

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Jun 21

Whataburger edged closer to Iowa

Posted on Friday, June 21, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The news last week that famous Texas restaurant chain Whataburger has been sold by the founding family to an investment firm, and associated hand-wringing about what an expansion could do to quality, made me think of a blog post I made in 2013.

Nearly 85% of Whataburger’s locations are in Texas. Six years ago, the northernmost locations were in Tulsa and Stillwater. But since then, the chain has moved northward…to suburban Tulsa, specifically, Claremore. Claremore has its place in Americana as the home of Will Rogers and the setting of the play that became — apply vocals as necessary — OOOOOOOklahoma!*

I’d have pinned Kansas City or Lawrence as the most likely future collision of Whataburger and Culver’s, but it turns out there are a dozen Culver’s in Texas already. (I did not look closely enough to see if any were within eyeshot of each other.)

*Of which a “darker, deconstructed version” just won a Tony for Best Revival of a Musical. THEY MADE A GRIMDARK OKLAHOMA IS NOTHING SACRED.

Weird that I’d pick that particular verb for two headlines in a row. *shrug*
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Jun 20

South Page edges closer to Clarinda

Posted on Thursday, June 20, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The Clarinda and South Page school boards have approved a sharing agreement that will allow students from the latter to take classes at the former, KMA reports. A story from the Clarinda Herald-Journal says the deal also includes “educational services.” Note that I do not count partial day sharing on the school timeline (Ar-We-Va is doing much the same thing with Carroll).

With South Page ending athletics, students can also do sports at Clarinda except for football because it’s an odd-numbered year and co-ops entered after districts are set make a team ineligible for postseason participation.

Clarinda’s in a bit of a lurch itself. The district is going to have an AEA administrator as acting superintendent next school year because its superintendent resigned about two weeks ago. He’s going to replace the Creston superintendent, who announced his retirement in April because of health issues.

Also in KMAland, the photograph accompanying a Coast Guard press release looks awfully familiar.

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Jun 19

Arkansas does something quasi-competent for US 63

Posted on Wednesday, June 19, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


October 19, 2016: BGS for the newly christened I-555 in Arkansas, as seen from US 61 where it parallels I-55.

This website has complained rather vociferously about the tragedy of US 63 in Arkansas — ever since putting up a page in 2002 shortly after passing what had been the previous endpoint at I-55 northwest of Memphis. (Extremism in the defense of roadgeeking is no vice! — Ed.) Arkansas’ treatment of US highways moved onto interstates is universally awful, so the complete absence of 63 markers on I-55 and I-40 after the route was extended in 1999 was par for the course.

After Arkansas got an exemption in the 2015 federal transportation bill that cleared the way for I-555 to exist between I-55 and Jonesboro, 63 became redundant (and unsigned) for an even longer segment. Only at some major exits, as seen at top, did the route get recognition.

With I-555 complete, Arkansas is going to restore some dignity to US 63. In an application to the spring 2019 meeting of the route numbering committee (large PDF, Page 5), Arkansas will reroute US 63 along US 49 between Jonesboro and I-40. This will take 63 away completely from its ancestral end of “approximately somewhere in the West Memphis area”. It will cut the overlap with I-40 to 23 miles, although who knows if that will result in its being signed there. It also will created a signed US 63/US 64 junction at the map dot of Fair Oaks in far western Cross County.

Tackling US 63 south of Jefferson City remains high on my to-do list. After my 2016 trip to the Deep South, I wanted to put some space in before going that way again. Now we see procrastination has paid off.

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Jun 18

Yale round gym added to National Register

Posted on Tuesday, June 18, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Stories: WHO (above); Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs (via Des Moines Register)

Yale High School ended in 1961, in a reorganization that created Yale-Jamaica-Bagley. In 1961, those three schools graduated nine, 16, and seven seniors, respectively (Guthrian, May 16, 1961). Yale got the youngest elementary students. The schools in both Yale and Bagley closed when YJB started sharing with Panora-Linden to form Panorama in 1989.

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Jun 17

I-80 plan puts double roundabout at Hoover exit

Posted on Monday, June 17, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Roundabouts are bad enough, but a double roundabout at a diamond interchange is perhaps the stupidest construction “innovation” of the past decade. Wisconsin adores them; the new(ish) US 12 from Baraboo to Wisconsin Dells is infested with such pairs. This means that to go through the interchange on the cross road is to endure two separate roundabouts in a short span.

The first case of them in Iowa is University Avenue at IA 27/58 in Cedar Falls. The second is proposed for the eastern edge of Iowa City.

Plans released at a meeting June 5 show a six-lane I-80 between the Herbert Hoover Highway and West Branch exits, picking up from where that currently stops. The Herbert Hoover Highway (F44, formerly IA 979, IA 1, IA 139, and IA 74) would be repositioned across the interstate. Today’s onramp to eastbound 80 follows almost exactly the road line that existed straight through the land that became the exit area; that intersection will be moved from its current spot.

Jason Hancock’s research found that this segment of I-80 had a special temporary opening for the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in 1962, then opened for good two weeks later. A Cedar Rapids Gazette article at the time said 50,000 visitors were expected and opening the highway “was expected to ease what otherwise might have been a gigantic traffic tieup.”

This will be the first six-lane interstate in Iowa not immediately at/in a metro area, although obviously it’s very near Iowa City, and part of a long-term plan to six-lane I-80 to Davenport.

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Jun 14

License Plate Letters — IAM, IBE, ICP, IDK

Posted on Friday, June 14, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Reader Dan Drackley and I both spotted the “I” series of license plates appearing in the same week of April, but it’s just now that I have an open post spot. As you can see from the combinations above, there’s a lot of potential here.

  • “I am” — Exodus 3:14
  • “I be” — the grammatically specious construction of the above
  • The Insane Clown Posse
  • And this advertisement, back before unlimited texting was a given.

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Jun 13

Galt post office a dead letter

Posted on Thursday, June 13, 2019, at 10:01 AM by Jeff

Second of three blog posts related to a May 23 DNR press release.

Sometimes I have really had to reach for a photo in a tiny village that gives any sense of place. Sometimes I give up. Other times I make do with what’s left.

In this case, I doubled up on desperation, because on two different trips I settled on the only commercial structure in Galt (pop. 32) — the abandoned post office. Guess I didn’t do enough of a check on existing photos.


September 11, 2014


July 9, 2018

If Galt is known to anyone outside Wright County, it’s because it was the closest incorporated place to the DeCoster egg production facilities, which were the subject of a salmonella contamination recall nearly a decade ago. The owner and his son were sent to prison and the facilities are under different management.

Now the post office, closed for a time unknown, will be demolished.

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Jun 12

When US 52 changes, IA 136 won’t

Posted on Wednesday, June 12, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

More than two years ago, the city of Dubuque and the Iowa DOT agreed on road swaps in relation to the Southwest Arterial. Six years after serious rumblings began about the city taking the project on for itself, we’re less than a year — but likely still a winter — away from completion.

Plans are to the point that the state submitted an application to the Route Numbering Committee (large PDF, Page 27) to reroute US 52 along IA 136 and US 20, its first relocation really visible on the map since, well, since the first time the state rerouted US 52 along IA 136 and US 20. There have been plenty of changes inside the city of Dubuque since that 1963-67 change, though. We’ll get our fifth wrong-way multiplex in the state. In this case, 52 will be reversed to make 52/61/151 north-south-south between the arterial and the Rockdale intersection, instead of all three going the same direction through the city.

With this change happening, I thought IA 136 would be pulled back from Luxemburg to Dyersville. I found out in the middle of May I was wrong. The DOT put out a sign letting for the entire route of IA 136 except for inside Clinton. It will involve replacing all the shields with the wide ones (cue loud heckling). I asked why shields would be replaced on the northernmost segment when they would be supplanted with US 52. The answer I got was that 136 would remain in place “to keep mailing addresses” because the highway number is its name in Dubuque County’s E911 system. (I didn’t ask a follow-up of, why not put that off a year so the signposts don’t have to be dealt with twice?)

So Iowa will get another redundancy in the state system, and my dream of breaking up IA 136, Iowa’s weirdest-shaped highway, into two separate routes (split at Wyoming) is crushed.

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Jun 11

Elma school to be demolished

Posted on Tuesday, June 11, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Third of three blog posts related to a May 23 DNR press release.


August 4, 2015: The former Elma Elementary School.

Five years ago the Howard-Winneshiek School District voted to close its attendance center in Elma, the second of three sites outside of Cresco that were shuttered in a short span of time. The building was given to the city.

The city has done what it can to make use of it, but ultimately decided that the best course of action was to tear down the original two-story building while keeping the gymnasium and day-care addition. The gym will become the town library and a multi-purpose room. A small clinic will be built nearby.

Elma got a DNR grant for asbestos abatement (always the asbestos abatement) and “deconstruction” to renovate and build on the site.

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