Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

September 8, 2010: South beginning of IA 98, in unincorporated Leando. Leando (pop. 115) and Douds (pop. 152) were granted Census Designated Place status for the 2010 census.

In the early 20th century, it was common for small-town newspapers to run items from other papers across the state telling of recent developments. It’s fitting, then, that I learned of the death of an original highway number in that way.

The Marshalltown Times-Republican carried a snippet from the Van Buren County Register — a paper so small it doesn’t appear to have a website — about the transfer of IA 98 to the county. According to the blurb, the DOT gave the county $2.31 million on Dec. 28. Transfer of the highway was agreed upon back in May 2014, when the state said it would build a new bridge across the Des Moines River. The bridge was the only reason 98 survived the Second Great Decommissioning.

IA 98 was born July 1, 1920, as a spur highway to Eldon, and it never strayed far from home. From World War II onward, it was merely a spur route from IA 16 to Douds (on the north side of the river) and Leando (on the south side, and also site of an elementary school).

IA 98 is survived by siblings IA 93 and IA 96, two other routes near in number that started as spurs but were extended later on.

Two former state highways in Iowa owed their existence to manufacturing.

One of them stuck around until the Second Great Decommissioning. IA 386 was an oddball route that had both ends facing southwest. There’s only one thing of note along its 2.7-mile route: The John Deere Dubuque Works.

 1953

The other, the first IA 396, is much more obscure, only around six years. Its number was immediately recycled, so it had no lasting effect on the Iowa map. Jason Hancock was pretty sure it ran along North 19th Avenue East and East 8th Street North in Newton. And at that intersection we find…well, I already spoiled it in the headline.

Maytag Company Builds $5,000,000 Factory at Newton

The Maytag company will construct a $5,000,000 plant at Newton, Iowa, according to an announcement made this week by Fred Maytag, president of the company. The organization … has maintained a plant in this community since the first Maytag washing machine was manufactured in 1907.
— Dixon Evening Telegraph, Dixon IL, May 6, 1948 (garbled OCR text edited)

Maytag announced a new factory in 1948, and IA 396 was designated in 1948, running right past the spot where a shiny new industrial complex appears in 1950s aerial photos. Awfully coincidental, don’t you think? This blog post is speculation, but I think there’s pretty strong evidence.

Today, something like this would not get its own number. It would be handled through the Revitalize Iowa’s Sound Economy (RISE) program, created in 1986 to “promote economic development in Iowa through the establishment, construction, and improvement of roads and streets.”

It’s not the Maytag factory anymore. Whirlpool slammed the door on it shortly after buying the company. Newton has gone all out in efforts to find tenants to fill the sprawling space; just last April a commercial real estate firm announced Maytag Plant 2 was refurbished for use.

Jason also notes that IA 387, which went to the Davenport Municipal Airport, passed a Caterpillar factory, but the state once had highways running to or past every airport of marginal size.

While working on revisions to my Sioux City Highway Chronology page — for some reason I never uploaded new entries and a new 1972 map when I finished it; they’re there now — I got to thinking about the era of a historic bridge there.

The Combination Bridge was one of six Iowa border bridges opened in the 19th century later part of the state and US highway system. Only one remains, the Government Bridge to the Rock Island Arsenal, and it doesn’t carry any highways anymore. For all but its last five years, the Combination Bridge was the way across the Missouri River in the Sioux City area. It was replaced a week before its 85th anniversary.

The state of Iowa recently celebrated its 171st birthday, which is just more than double 85 years. With an online calculator, I figured a factoid: On December 16, 2016, for the first time since 1945, the existence of the Combination Bridge covered less time than half of Iowa’s statehood.