Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

June 12, 2005: North end of US 77 in Sioux City. It comes across the Missouri River and ends. Even at its greatest extent, though, 77 only went through Sioux City, and so IA 77 was never renumbered.

Since Jason Hancock and I went through Sioux City to cover the area, the entire interchange has been put under reconstruction. This sign doesn’t exist anymore. Southbound I-29 now has the US 77 exit as part of the Hamilton Boulevard interchange.

September 2, 2009: On the northwest side of Waukon — you can see it on the map — IA 76 makes a turn off A52 (old IA 9) and heads for Minnesota. The unique characteristics of this sign are the inclusion in the first place of “Minn. St. Line” and the listing of a closer destination at the bottom.

The entire route of IA 76, but especially the segment north of Waukon, has some of the best scenery in Iowa. It’s the edge of the Driftless Area, a section of northeastern Iowa that was not ground into submission by the glaciers. (A USGS writing says the glaciers didn’t come at all.) There aren’t any straight lines here; the road hugs every hill. I drove it shortly after it was repaved, and it was beautiful.

May 10, 2007: US 75 at MN 171 near the Canada border. Although the picture shows a double arrow, US 75 to the left of this picture is a giant dead-end. It’s been that way for nearly a decade, since the closing of the border station in favor of only having the one at I-29.

It’s a little strange and perhaps silly to have the “King of Trails” broken internationally when there is an obvious solution. Just reroute 75 on 171, into North Dakota, and enter Manitoba with I-29 and US 81. After all, MB 75 remains the expressway to Winnipeg.

August 6, 2005: East of Peoria, two interchanges in a row on I-74 are for other interstates, I-474 and I-155.

I-74 is Iowa’s connection through the southern part of the old Northwest Territory. It’s only in the state for a few miles. It would have made more sense to send it around the Quad Cities on what is I-280, but it was not to be. Illinois’ effort to put I-80 on that route drew enough of an outcry from Iowa that the interstate routings there are now locked in place.

Today, I-74 has some of the oldest bridges in the interstate system, the ones across the Mississippi River built in 1935 and 1959.

While Cincinnati, the eastern end of I-74, isn’t quite Southern, there is one little connection to the disjointed segments in North Carolina: Near Exit 1 in Davenport is Iowa’s only freestanding Chick-Fil-A.

October 15, 2009: South end of US 73 on the western edge of the Kansas City metro. The location changed a few years ago, after Kansas moved the remaining independent pieces of US 24/40 east of KS 7 onto I-70.

US 73 should have been in Iowa. In 1934, the state even created an IA 73 in the hope of an immediate upgrade. Unfortunately, US 73 had already been extended through Nebraska by then, and Iowa got US 59 instead.