Apr 07

Town of Hepburn to disincorporate

Posted on Thursday, April 7, 2022, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Hepburn, in Page County, the 932nd-largest town* in Iowa in 2020, is discontinuing its official existence. The Clarinda Herald-Journal reports that the process has been underway for months. The county will take over the streets and individuals will have to pay for streetlights if they want to keep them around.

When the disincorporation is final, Iowa will have 940 incorporated places. The City Development Board minutes in February said there could be “a discontinuance or two” in upcoming months.

*Technically, Hepburn is tied with Coburg and Galt at 930th, but I’m sub-ranking by alphabetical order. It’s easier to set the list that way.

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Apr 04

Elkader Keystone Bridge undergoing major rehab

Posted on Monday, April 4, 2022, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The Keystone Bridge in downtown Elkader is the town’s only bridge across the Turkey River except for the IA 13 bypass. The bridge closes to vehicular traffic today for a rehabilitation project. Work is expected to last until October.

The bridge was completed in 1889 and was part of the Iowa highway system until 1982. A history of the bridge and its predecessors, along with lots of photos, can be found here. The city’s website says the bridge was built with local limestone.

The original cost was about $16,300; this year’s project was contracted above $3.6 million.

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Apr 01

Anyone want to buy a bridge (again)?

Posted on Friday, April 1, 2022, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


July 22, 2015: The “Hardin City Bridge” is not in its original location. Marker at top of entrance on the other side says “Western Bridge Works, Fort Wayne, Ind., 1879.”

The Chambers Ford Bridge in southeast Tama County was offered for sale before it was demolished and replaced. Now another historic Pratt truss in Iowa is doomed in the same way.

The Fort Atkinson Bridge, on the Turkey River just north of that town, was built in 1892, according to BridgeHunter. This bridge was on the original route of present IA 24 until the entire route east of Lawler was graded on its present alignment in 1932.

The bridge has been closed for years and has become a nuisance. County engineers want to get rid of the liability, reports the Decorah News. The story does not say if the bridge would be replaced, although given that it’s been closed and IA 24 is a decent enough alternative it probably won’t be.

But that’s not the only bridge that can be yours after shipping and handling fees! (Land not included.)

The Waukon Standard reports the Iowa DOT has four bridges up for “adoption”:

  • Black Hawk Bridge in Lansing, currently in use and set to be replaced by 2025
  • Eastbound US 30 over the Cedar River, which is only from 1953 but historic in its construction type as a “welded I-girder bridge” and being torn down in a matter of weeks
  • The Hardin City Bridge northwest of Steamboat Rock, built in 1879, relocated after replacement in the 1980s
  • A bridge over the Boone River northeast of Renwick, closed for some amount of time. It is an Iowa Bridge Company bridge from 1912, a “polygonal-chorded Warren truss” style immediately rendered obsolete by Iowa Highway Commission design standards. (The replacement design was the familiar pony truss seen here.)
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Mar 30

Tama still looking for contract on Lincoln Highway bridge

Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2022, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


July 7, 2013: A pickup crosses the Lincoln Highway bridge on the east end of Tama. The concrete letters are more than a century old.

The Lincoln Highway bridge in Tama has moved to its third round of bids for rehabilitation, and this round will be conducted by the Iowa DOT instead of the city.

The Marshalltown Times-Republican reports the bidding is likely to be done in July with a contract in August and construction next year.

When it comes to keeping the historic bridge intact, it’s easier said than done. From the story:

“We already kind of got the information that the bridge as a whole can’t be moved without probably destroying the railings,” council member Emily Babinat said. “So obviously, we don’t want to do that.”

The Tama city clerk said the bridge would have to have its National Register classification changed in order to replace the bridge deck and supports without losing historic designation.

Either way, the six-figure cost of rehabilitation will only prolong the bridge’s life another 15 years. Then the preservation struggle could be even harder — assuming this one can get through.

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Mar 28

Census Bureau: Dallas County cracked 100,000

Posted on Monday, March 28, 2022, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

On April 1, 2020 — but not known for more than 14 months later — Dallas County’s official population was 99,678.

It was a temporary snapshot before vaulting a threshold.

Last week, the Census Bureau released its 2021 population estimates for U.S. counties. This is the third stage in the yearly sets of estimates (state, metro, county, city) of the previous fiscal year.

According to these numbers — and seen earlier in the July 2020 estimates that were released last October — Dallas County reached 100,000 within three months of the census, and is above 103,000 now.

Dallas County is adding nearly 10 people a day. In fiscal 2021, the county is estimated to have added 3,310 people, or 9.56/day. That’s nearly the entire population of Iowa’s smallest county, Adams, moving there in 12 months. At that rate, Dallas will displace Woodbury as Iowa’s sixth-largest county in the next estimate.

Dallas County’s addition is also greater than Iowa’s increase in the same time period, indicating losses across rural parts of the state. Iowa was surpassed by Utah in the 2019 estimates, and officially in 2020 (and I just about called it). It is more astounding/depressing when you factor in that the Beehive State is doing it in half the space of the Tall Corn State given that two-thirds of the former is federally owned land.

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Mar 25

Absolutely, totally not a conspiracy

Posted on Friday, March 25, 2022, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

There are three universities with both men’s and women’s teams in the Sweet 16: Michigan, North Carolina, and — for the first time since 2000 — Iowa State. Gazette stories: MBB, MBB notebook, WBB, WBB notebook, column.

Only one of those three has their teams playing in overlapping time frames — and it’s happened in every round of the tournaments. It takes a lot of things to happen for that to happen, and yet somehow it has. But it’s better than the alternative!

The men’s game — Cyclones vs. Hurricanes in the Windy City, as others have pointed out — is late in Chicago presumably because it’s a matchup of double-digit seeds. But why in the world doesn’t it start until “8:59” Central Time? No basketball game should tip off after 8 PM local, and honestly anything after 7 is ridiculous.

The women’s game vs. Creighton is decidedly an undercard to the other matchup — North Carolina vs. South Carolina, being played in North Carolina — but has the later (8:30 CT) tipoff tonight.

The NCAA has no control over tip times, nor do athletic departments. CBS/Turner and ESPN certainly aren’t in cahoots with a goal of making things difficult for ISU fans.

Or so they’d have us believe. (No collusion! No collusion!)

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Mar 23

ISU WBB list has bugs or omissions

Posted on Wednesday, March 23, 2022, at 10:09 AM by Jeff

The cyclones.com website has become notoriously difficult to navigate in the last few years, probably because (like all the other Learfield IMG websites out there) it was “optimized for mobile”. It even works differently in different browsers.

One thing added at some point is an opponent-by-opponent series history of the type typically found in the yearly media guides, which themselves are difficult to find. The 2021-22 women’s basketball media guide, now rebranded as a “Fact book”, is for some reason tucked in a URL dated May 6, 2015, and is not accessible under the “Historical” submenu in Safari. I was looking in the women’s basketball guide for some historical information, and discovered a weird circumstance: The website’s opponent series history and the media guide opponent series history do not agree. I don’t know it it is a classification issue regarding the earliest years of the program, a neglected non-entry of games, phantom games (see here), or some combination.

Online, the series history vs. Iowa through and including the 2021-22 season has a record of 18-26 (44 games). In the fact book, the series history vs. Iowa not including the 2021-22 season has a record of 22-29 (51 games). The website, compared with the fact book, does not have the first of two games in four days against Iowa in December 1975, including the very first; the second of two games in two weeks in February 1977; both of two games in three days in February 1978 in Des Moines; and all four games between 2007 and 2010.

On the other hand, if there was a game played December 2, 1975, nobody reported on it. The Daily Iowan on December 2 covered Iowa’s loss at home to Coe the night before but says the next game is December 5, referenced above. I’m not sure it can be solved by re-dating it, either, because a year earlier, the DI has Iowa playing at Grandview College on December 3, 1974. Granted, college women’s basketball coverage in the 1970s is the Dark Ages, but we should at least be able to agree on dates and opponents, right?

February 1978 was the AIAW Tournament in Des Moines. The Ames Tribune matches the women’s fact book, with a loss to Iowa February 23 and a win Feb. 25. Apparently, ISU played two games on the 25th, beating Iowa then losing to Drake.

Online, the series history vs. Kansas State including both regular-season games of 2021-22 has a record of 45-51 (96 games). In the fact book, the series history vs. Kansas State not including the 2021-22 season has a record of 44-53 (97 games). The online list is missing the first two games the teams played against each other, in 1974 and 1975, and the second matchup of the 1987-88 Big Eight season, a win on February 23 in Ames. (See p. 96-97 of the KSU WBB 2021-22 media guide.)

There may be more discrepancies throughout, and I’m not able to hunt them all down. I hope they can be cleared up, in one direction or another, so everything is in sync. I mean, how can records be missing from this century? Do they want to make Mrs. Otzelberger (née Alison Lacey) unhappy?

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Mar 21

It’s a great week to be a Cyclone

Posted on Monday, March 21, 2022, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Every week is a great week to be a Cyclone, but some weeks are better than others. Take this one, which is very, very SWEET.

I’m too sick to expound upon that right now, but if you know you know. Now for some inspirational music.

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Mar 18

IA 21 at US 30 to close for up to 20 months

Posted on Friday, March 18, 2022, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

At the end of this month, construction will begin on the IA 21 interchange with future four-lane US 30. The space is pretty flat, so to build up land for an overpass (as with US 218), IA 21 will have to be closed for an extended amount of time.

The DOT press release says “until fall 2023” but I assume that closure can go all the way to Thanksgiving. The detour (PDF) runs through Keystone and uses old IA 131 between Belle Plaine and 30. That means there will be more left-turning traffic than usual at two intersections.

The interchange will likely open to a four-lane on the west first, since the Tama County four-lane now extends to literally just over the hill from the intersection. The 12-mile segment from just east of 21 to just west of US 218 will be the last link of a four-lane 30 from Ogden to Lisbon that began more than half a century ago.

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Mar 16

100th anniversary of Glidden school

Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2022, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


June 22, 2013: The very stately Glidden school, now Glidden-Ralston High School.

Carroll Times, March 16, 1922:

Attend dedication of Glidden school

County Superintendent George Galloway and Superintendent of Schools J.N. Cunningham took part in the dedication of Glidden’s new consolidated school building Friday, a building recently completed at a cost of about $200,000 and said to be one of the most modern school buildings in this part of the state. …

The new consolidated school is planned to care for the needs of the district for many years to come. It has a modern heating and ventilation system, two assembly rooms for junior and senior high school pupils, a large gymnasium, large, well-lighted class and study rooms, natural sciences laboratory, large libraries and every convenience of a modern school building. The building is practically fire proof and is conveniently located.

(“Practically” in this context is basically asking for the smite button, but luckily no doom this time. — Ed.)

A highway-related note about this school: Construction of the school, and later the sports complex, resulted in the closure of four blocks of Nevada Street in Glidden. Nevada Street was the route used in Huebinger’s Iowa Official Transcontinental Route (1912), which was used as the basis of the Lincoln Highway in Iowa. The business district is on Idaho Street, a block west of Nevada. It appears that the south route through Glidden to Ralston fell out of favor for the north route shortly after the Lincoln Highway was officially dedicated, although it lives on as a Heritage Byway loop route using Idaho.

CORRECTION 10/13/22: Huebinger’s map of Glidden is wrong. Nevada Street never ran north of 5th Street (that is, behind the school/between the school and ball diamonds) and was never part of the Transcontinental.

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