Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

October 19, 2018: Acting Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg (center) holds the ribbon to mark the completion of four-lane US 20 along with a host of government officials and members of the US 20 Corridor Association.

Holstein, Iowa, October 19 — Lorraine Jepsen was there at the beginning.

Some of her Hinkhouse family land was used for the construction of a new alignment of US 20 along the section line five miles west of Correctionville in the 1950s. It was a replacement for concrete that had just turned 30 years old itself, thanks to Woodbury County’s aggressive early paving efforts.

After the road was graded, her family would ride horses and a Mexican burro named Kate on it. In the summer of 1958, they watched it get paved, “and that was our entertainment.”

When that section was completed — three miles of four-lane east of Moville plus a new two-lane road nearly all the way to Holstein — a worker with the Iowa Highway Commission said they’d be back in “10 years or so” to get more land for the other two lanes.

“Ten years or so” later, give or take a half-century, it finally happened, and Jepsen was there at the end. A packed crowd at the new Boulders Inn and Suites in Holstein celebrated the completion of a four-lane US 20 from Dubuque to Sioux City. It was a project long promised but achieved only through the persistence of dozens of Iowa residents for dozens of years.

US 20 between Correctionville and Holstein, which opened Wednesday, was the last link. Two other segments, Early to Holstein and Moville to Correctionville, opened earlier this fall. Twenty-four miles east of Early opened in 2012, on a day that was even more windy than Friday.

Acting Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg, a northwest Iowa native, expressed appreciation for the project on behalf of both himself and Gov. Kim Reynolds, who did not attend in order to be at a Des Moines political rally featuring Vice President Mike Pence announced earlier in the week. “I can sum up today in one word — finally,” Gregg said.

Iowa DOT Director Mark Lowe said that four and a half hours into his job, Gov. Terry Branstad summoned him to talk about the budget and finishing Highway 20. He said Branstad asked about how “to raise the revenue needed” to finish the job. Most of Friday’s speakers avoided using the phrase “gas tax” although it was an increase in the gas tax that made today possible.

Over and over, speakers noted the team effort it took to finish the four-lane, including from some people who had died before they could see their work come to fruition.

U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron, said he worried the project would lose leverage after 20 was completed to Fort Dodge but the support stayed strong. He mentioned that right before earmarks were banned in Congress, he made sure funding would go toward environmental and archaeological work on the corridor west of US 71 so the project would be “shovel ready.”

For Iowa Transportation Commissioner Charese Yanney, the day was personal. Yanney’s aunt and three other people died at the intersection of US 20 and 59, right outside the hotel, and from that point on the family had a mission to make the highway safe. (That crash is likely why a couple miles of 20/59 got four-laned back in 1964.)

Outside the hotel, dignitaries of various groups took their turns cutting the ultimate ribbon for Highway 20.

The afternoon’s celebration continued with a “Taste of 20” that included two famous Iowa food companies, Cookies BBQ Sauce of Wall Lake and Wells Blue Bunny of Le Mars, and a batch of local providers from the US 20 corridor west of Fort Dodge. Tiefenthaler Quality Meats of Holstein provided multiple samples, as did Noble Popcorn of Sac City. Attendees were invited to Holstein’s Oktoberfest that night downtown.

The Fort Dodge Messenger and Ida County Courier/Holstein Advance printed special sections to celebrate. The Messenger’s section includes a timeline from the US 20 Association, which was also used in the Des Moines Register’s coverage. If the association used Jason Hancock’s Iowa Highways Page website, which includes my research, then I can say I had my own little part in this historic day.

Further coverage: Messenger, Iowa Public Radio, Sioux City Journal, KTIV, and a Waterloo Courier article from 1997 that shows some the committee’s determination to get this project seen through.

October 20, 2002: Concrete for new US 20 ends at the Grundy/Hardin county line, as seen from the B Avenue/Z Avenue bridge. A full gallery of that fall’s construction can be seen here.

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U.S. 20 between Sioux City and Moville will officially become a four-lane highway Monday morning with ribbon-cutting ceremonies on 13.3 miles of eastbound lanes.
— Sioux City Journal, November 14, 1964

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Iowa Highway Commission Chairman Derby Thompson promised Tuesday that improvement of U.S. 20 into a four-lane freeway across the state will have “top priority” in the state’s highway construction plan.
— Des Moines Register, November 4, 1970

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Bill Trampe, chairman of the Hardin County Conservation Board, one of the groups opposed to the completion of the project, said, “The conservation board will use every legal means available to stop the road going through the Iowa River Greenbelt.”
… Completion of Highway 20 from I-35 to Highway 65 is included in the DOT’s five-year plan, with projected completion in 1986-87. [It wasn’t. — Ed.]
— Waterloo Courier, July 15, 1983

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The new lanes of westbound U.S. 20 are scheduled to open between Correctionville and Holstein on Wednesday, October 17. A lane closure will be utilized in the eastbound lanes to restore the pavement markings.
— The most understated Iowa DOT mailing list release ever, October 15, 2018

The Des Moines Register has more,* including a timeline that uses dates from Jason Hancock’s website (and thus, my research from more than a decade ago).

*that weblink=holy SEO Batman

November 12, 2008: Gov. Chet Culver addresses the crowd at the opening of the US 34 Fairfield bypass, completing the expressway between Des Moines and Burlington first proposed 40 years earlier (although, as originally planned, it used IA 92 to Oskaloosa).

On Friday, Gov. Kim Reynolds will continue the streak of Iowa governors who get a major highway opening ceremony during their time in office. The gas tax increase that has enabled the completion of four-lane US 20 in Iowa was signed by her predecessor, but she will be the one on stage.*

Unlike many of these ceremonies, this one got good advance notice — not just because the date (Oct. 19) is significant to US 20, but because it’s the fall of an election year. Reynolds and Democratic candidate Fred Hubbell will have their second of three debates in Sioux City tomorrow night. Friday will be the US 20 party (and its attendant news coverage, although primarily in northwest Iowa). The final debate will be on the other side of the state at 8 AM on Sunday. (That is not a typo.)

There will be MANY other politicians there Friday, of course, and the director of the Iowa DOT. But on such occasions, politics gets put aside for speechifying and back-patting. As far as I know, only one person was in attendance at ribbon-cuttings for the US 34 Missouri River bridge in 2014, US 20 at Early in 2012, US 34 Fairfield bypass in 2008, the Avenue of the Saints completion in 2006, and US 20 in 2003, and that person isn’t running for office.

*UPDATE 10/21: Or, uh, not? Vice-presidential drop-ins on short notice take priority over the most anticipated infrastructure event in Iowa, I guess. There was a ribbon-cutting, but she wasn’t there. The streak gets an asterisk.