September 13, 2015: Of all the routes listed below, IA 93’s west end and IA 96’s east end are the only endpoints that retain both their number and location from 1920. Four other endpoints have the same location but different number.
The next batch of routes to get a look in the 1920 system have one thing at least partially in common: They were extended, sometimes significantly so, after their creation — or got gobbled up by another route’s extension.
- IA 43, 85, and 98 are special in this regard: They were extended and then truncated, with their original routes superseded by other numbers.
- IA 49, 55 (now 188), 71 (now 202), 75 (now 143), 78, 83, 93, 96, and 107 started as spurs but eventually had both ends at state-maintained routes. Of those nine, only four intersect(ed) another route on the way.
- In the game of eat-or-be-eaten, with the IHC deciding which end a number was on:
- IA 47 and 91 are now tiny parts of IA 175.
- IA 32 and 33 were taken care of by a reroute of the highway between Cherokee and Le Mars, but not before 32 spent some time as 145.
- IA 44 is the southernmost part of IA 15 and reached its full extent in 1934.
- IA 45 nearly, but not quite, got gobbled up by 46, which started out as the only double spur in the 1920 system. They, along with 89 and 95, would eventually be rolled into IA 141, save for 45’s two miles north of Manilla.
- IA 86 had a couple more turns than the typical state park route, but never left Council Bluffs. The route to Lake Manawa died in 1928, which technically ends its line. But the road was resurrected in 1931 as IA 241, was renumbered IA 192 a month later, became the “South Expressway,” was decommissioned, then was recommissioned again. Its lineage finally flickered out as Council Bluffs took over surface streets while I-29/80 was upgraded to a dual-divided freeway.
- IA 100 got to be eaten twice. Its original north-south route was dropped in 1921 but became part of IA 48 in 1931. Its east-west route was usurped by IA 92 so that route wasn’t overlapping with US 6 for half of Pottawattamie County. Visit the page for the other, weirder parts of its history.
