(July 1, 1920-October 16, 1926)
- In 1920, they knew it as: Part of the King of Trails, from Sioux City to Minnesota (4 counties, then 3)
- We know it as: US 75
- Let's get granular:
- Downtown Sioux City to Hinton: 4th Street (if continued west), Court Street, 27th Street, Floyd Boulevard, Leeds Road, northbound lanes of present US 75
- Hinton to Merrill: Starting about a mile north of Hinton, close to but not parallel to the railroad tracks, running into vacated extension of Jade Avenue, then Ideal Road
- Merrill: Webster, 5th, and Main streets, then US 75 (northbound lanes)
- Le Mars: C38, Lincoln Avenue, Lincoln Street, 6th St SW, Central Avenue, 5th Street SW, 2nd Avenue NW, vacated bridge over Floyd River, Business US 75
- Le Mars to Perkins: US 75, except for following the section line between IA 10 and 430th Street
- Perkins to Rock Rapids: US 18, K42, Main Street and 3rd Avenue in Doon, Franklin Boulevard, vacated bridge, Grant Avenue, 190th Street, US 75
- Rock Rapids, 1920-22 only?: IA 9, Story Street, 4th Avenue, Boone Street, Hark Boulevard
- The 1914 county map does not show a road on the section line that is present-day Union Street, running north from the 75/9 intersection, but a 1921 bridge contract does. If 22 did go to Rock Rapids' downtown intersection of Main Street and Story Street, it was for two years at most.
- The north-south streets in the core of Rock Rapids, named in Ordinance No. 14 (Aug. 2, 1887) westward from the Rock River, run as such: Tama, Marshall, Story, Boone, Greene, Carroll. Why that portion of that tier of counties, I wonder?
- Rock Rapids to state line: Union Street, A16, US 75
- A railroad overpass a mile south of the state line was removed in 1985.
- Related routes:
- IA 376 (II), the spiritual descendant of IA 22 in Woodbury County, now Business US 75 (but on a completely different route than IA 5/22 in the 1920s)
- IA 404 (II), US 75 north of IA 3 left behind by the Le Mars bypass and now part of Business US 75 there, although only the part north of the Floyd River is on 22's alignment
- IA 470 in Merrill, which was part of US 75 before 1957 but didn't appear as a state-designated route again until 2011, for unknown reasons
- See also: Sioux City Highway Chronology for 1925 route of IA 5, which 22 would have been on before truncation.
NORTH End: Minnesota state line, Lyon County IA/Rock County MN
Facing east, but heading south, on 75 (9/16/07)
The section lines in Iowa and Minnesota don't quite match up, so there
is an east-west jog on the route today, with each state in charge of
half of it. I don't know for sure how IA 22 connected with MN 6. A
1921 culvert document shows IA 22 came from the south (right) to the
squared-off corner in the center of the photo (not the curve, but beyond
the car). It might have gone east about a quarter-mile to the nearest
section road in Minnesota rather than coming here to the camera.
SOUTH End (2): IA 5, now Central Ave. at 7th St., Le Mars, Plymouth County
IA 22 never got signed along the paved road between Sioux City and Le Mars. That opened Oct. 2, 1926, and 22 had been cut to Le Mars in the Great Truncation about two years earlier. Although IA 22 is the north-south route, and with US 75 being like it is today, it seems like it would have made more sense to truncate IA 5 to Le Mars instead. However, 5 was the route of the Hawkeye Highway, and that status made it hard initially to alter. It's why the road to Akron, although a logical continuation west, had a separate number until 1929.
A 2013 presentation, "History of Concrete Paving in Iowa", said 1st Avenue SW in Le Mars, a block west of Central, was the first concrete pavement in Iowa in 1904 and second oldest concrete street in America. (The page mislabels it as 1st Street, but the accompanying early 1960s photo clearly has the Hardware Hank store on 1st Avenue.) This concrete lasted six decades. The paving on Central (formerly Main; Le Mars renamed its street system in 1922) was not far behind, and thus may be the first concrete section of primary road in Iowa:
June
11-18
Progress on the paving has progressed quite well this week, all of Main
street north of the railroad having been completed, rolled and sanded
and will be ready for use by teams shortly. The concrete work has been
finished on Sixth street east of Main began Friday morning and will be
completed by Monday night if the weather is good or unless some
difficulty occurs to stop the work.
— Le Mars Globe-Post, June 11,
1904
SOUTH End (1): IA 23/IA 34, now Court St. at 4th St., Sioux City, Woodbury County
The intersection of 5th and Court is where IA 5 and IA 12, and also presumably IA 29, started heading north to leave downtown Sioux City. It's not out of the question that 22 (and 5) were also signed west along 4th to near the Combination Bridge.
Page created 4/19/20