(July 1, 1920-October 16, 1926)

• In 1920, they knew it as: In 1920, they knew it as: The Red Ball Route, a border-to-border Avenue of the Saints 70 years before anyone thought up that name (11 counties)
• We know it as: US 218 (pre-four-lane everything, of course)
• Let's get granular:
• It's unknown whether 40 ended in downtown Keokuk or went all the way to the Des Moines River with IA 20. If it did: Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad bridge, road on edge of car graveyard, more jagged road where the abandoned Valley Drive is today, US 136, Iowa Street, California Avenue, US 136 (formerly named Reid Street west of Sage Creek)
• Keokuk to near Montrose: US 218, 243rd Avenue, and US 61, but including the following:
• Vacated road between the present 61/218 junction and Argyle Road on the west side of the then-Keokuk & North Western Railroad, now more or less the southbound lanes of 61/218
• Vacated road that was a little straighter north of 242nd Avenue before angling northeast
• T intersection in the middle of Section 16, north of the present 61/218 split, where a left turn went toward Donnellson and a right turn went east ¼ mile, north ¼ mile, east another ¼ mile, then into Montrose
• The T was reconfigured to the intersection that would serve as the south end of US 161 in 1922. Notably, this did not make US 61 the through route, and that would remain the case until 2001.
• Near Montrose to Donnellson: US 218 with the following: 211th Avenue in New Boston; a road slightly closer to Central Lee High School; 200th Avenue (dead end), 255th Street, and 196th Avenue in Charleston; vacated line running north from 218's intersection with 245th Street; 240th Street, partially vacated, on a line just north of where IA 27 crosses 218, and now intersects old IA 394; an extension of old 394 on the section line to 218; old US 218 through Donnellson
• Donnellson to Mount Pleasant: US 218, J40, 150th Avenue, W55, Main Street in Salem, W55, Fremont Avenue, Nature Center Drive [old bridge still there], Garth Avenue, Geneva Avenue (dead end), H46
• Mount Pleasant: Jefferson Street, Broadway Street, Iowa Avenue
• Mount Pleasant to Iowa City: US 218, old US 218/James Avenue, US 218, W64, vacated line right next to 218's southbound lanes, Old White Way, Violet Avenue, Railroad Street in Ainsworth, Underwood Avenue, 180th Street, Tulip Avenue, 135th Street, W61, Ella and Ash streets in Riverside, Tupelo Boulevard/Rice Lane (dead ends broken by present US 218), W64
• Riverside Drive, but not including the segment with the street name of Old Highway 218. At about the Johnson County Fairgrounds, IA 40 jumped the tracks, and followed the diagonal Riverside Drive past the south side of the UI surplus warehouse, then went straight north past the airport on what acts as a frontage road. This segment was changed with paving in 1930 to parallel the railroad, but it's the old road that retains the Riverside name.
• Incidentally, this creates a situation where Riverside Drive technically intersects itself, just north of McCollister Boulevard, for the south/back entrance to the UI surplus warehouse.
• Iowa City: IA 1, Burlington Street, Clinton Street, Washington Street (1 block), Dubuque Street
• Much like how multiple routes passed by the State Capitol, the intersection of Washington and Dubuque streets near the Old Capitol was a convergence of IA 7, 11, 40, and 74.
• A 1919 city map uses Benton Street to cross the Iowa River, then come into downtown via Capitol Street. The route could have been relocated to the Burlington Street bridge in 1915 and the map was late, but there's at least one argument for retaining Capitol until the 1920s: It passed the Johnson County Courthouse.
• Capitol is now broken between Court and Burlington for Pentacrest Garden Apartments.
• Iowa City to south side Cedar Rapids: Dubuque Street, Curtis Bridge Road, Club Road, E70/Wright Brothers Boulevard, Kirkwood Boulevard, a road in the middle of Section 9 that is now the US 30 freeway
• From downtown Iowa City to downtown Cedar Rapids, IA 11 and 40 share the corridor.
• It is possible, perhaps even likely, that before paving in 1927, the route through North Liberty used Zeller and Main streets. That would match the 1914 map, which also had the route on the other side of the railroad north of North Liberty.
• As late as the 1960s, the entire town of North Liberty was contained in a square bordered by the railroad and Penn, Front, and Zeller streets.
• The abandoned road you can see from the northbound lanes of I-380 when Coralville Lake is low is this alignment.
• Just north of Shueyville on the Linn County side of the line is an extinct map dot called Western. The town came into existence in 1856 and was named because it was the westernmost college of the United Brethren Church. The college made it 25 years before relocating because Western was not on a railroad, and was moved to Toledo. It was renamed Leander Clark College, after a benefactor, on January 23, 1906, and then merged with Coe College in 1918, "returning" Western College to Linn County. (Tama County History, 1987; Toledo Chronicle, January 25, 1906).
• Cedar Rapids: J Street, 16th Avenue SW, C Street SW, 1st Street SW, 1st Avenue, 9th Street SW, A Avenue NW, Johnson Avenue, 16th Avenue SW
• The 1914 Linn County map has "add'n 10-1-23" south of the then-Cedar Rapids city limits at Wilson Avenue (middle of Section 33). This is confirmed by the Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette in late 1922: "... a new road the rest of the way and entering the city at C street instead of J street as it is at the present time ... The road would join C street at Bowling's hill near the Bohemian National cemetery". (Capitalization styles then were different than today.)
• The connection between J and C streets, 16th Avenue SW, was found in a mid-1924 letter to the Gazette editor from the president of the Red Ball Route association, stating that the association had nothing to do with changing the route. In fact, he was upset "there is a certain group responsible for taking it on themselves to switch the Red Ball route and the markers without authority."
• C Street goes past Cedar Rapids' Czech Village and the intersection with 16th is in its heart.
• There is a restored 1920s gas station at C Street SW and 18th Avenue SW, on the post-1924 route three blocks northwest of the Bowling Street intersection. For a time in the 2010s a business called Red Ball Printing used the building.
• From the intersection of 1st and 1st west to Youngville Cafe, IA 40 overlaps the Lincoln Highway (IA 6).
• West of Cedar Rapids to Vinton: US 30, alternating between present eastbound and westbound lanes, then US 218
• Vinton: IA 150/C Avenue, 13th Street, A Avenue, 4th Street, US 218, D Street/58th Street Drive, 22nd Avenue Drive
• A and 4th is the heart of downtown. Relocation to C Avenue happened no later than 1929.
• Vinton to Waterloo: US 218, with sharp corners at IA 8 and 50th Street Drive; Main Street in La Porte City; vacated road on the east side of the railroad from about D46 to Cotter Road near Washburn (switched 1924)
• US 218 was removed from Main Street in LPC in 1953.
• Old telegraph/telephone poles, still with their glass insulators, line the highway north of LPC.
• Waterloo/Cedar Falls: US 218, Texas Street south and just north of US 20, La Porte Road, Commercial Street, 5th Street, Franklin Street, Oak Avenue, Park Road, Broadway Street, Riehl Street, Burton Avenue, Parker Street, Cedar Bend Street, Donald Street, Wagner Road, Airline Highway/Lincoln Street, IA 57/1st Street, V14/Center Street
• In the 1910s, the city limits were extended outward from Hawthorne Road to Ridgeway Avenue.
• As of 2019, the parts of Texas Street that are asphalt are old 218, and the parts that are concrete are where the road was moved for new 20 and I-380. Then the old road jumps to the west side of I-380, and the asphalt picks up again by the intersection of La Porte Road and Grimm Street.
• La Porte Road is now broken at Hawthorne, where the Rooff Expressway slices through.
• A levee was built on top on much of Wagner Road south of Broadway Street; Donald Street has a gate blocking entrance to an abandoned parking lot at Tibbitts Park.
• The alignment paralleling the railroad, now part of Broadway Street and Diagonal Street but originally an extension of Cedar Bend Street, was built in 1924.
• Northeast of the Cedar River and west of present US 218 is the once-independent village of Cedar City. North of the Cedar River on old 218 is North Cedar, which was annexed into Cedar Falls in 1971.
• A possible first alignment across the Cedar River north of Cedar Falls is a vacated diagonal from the Brown Bottle restaurant to Cottage Row Road, then north. If so, it was changed to Center Street in 1923. The earliest alignment of a main road here avoids Cedar Falls, using Independence Avenue (labeled on Google Maps as Street), Big Woods Road (right through the lake, which didn't exist until the 1980s) and Lone Tree Road.
• Janesville: V14/7th Street, Main Street, C50/Barrick Road, Maple Street
• Janesville fought the state against removing the highway from Main Street and an 1882 bridge over the Cedar River. It lost, of course.
• There are four alignments of IA 40/US 218 in Janesville: Main and Barrick, 1920-30; 7th and Maple, the "old 218" route, 1930-93; the first four-lane, the southbound lanes of which remain as Wildcat Way, 1993-2016; and a slightly relocated four-lane to make room for an interchange with C50.
• Janesville to Nashua: US 218, 260th Street, Eagle Avenue and due-north extension, US 218, Business US 218/IA 116, IA 3, 12th Street in Waverly, 205th Street, T77, C33, Bishop Avenue, 150th Street, old US 218/Main Street in Plainfield, US 218 (northbound lanes, more or less), Asherton Avenue
• The Avenue of the Saints four-lane retained a jog halfway between Janesville and Waverly. A project scheduled to end in 2025 will finally make it straight, with an interchange on top of a fill-pond that was created the first time the state tried to iron out the jog in the late 1970s. Janesville will lose another fight with the state when Maple loses access to 218 on the north side of town.
• In 1924, there was a slight change near Waverly, using more of Business 218 and T77/Casper Avenue, and moving it away from Wartburg College.
• T77 is signed going east on 205th and north on Casper. However, half a mile south on Business 218, there's a "Jct T77". This implies that T77 intersects itself!
• Nashua area: Asherton Avenue/Greeley Street, IA 346/Sample Street, Charles City Road, Cedar Crest Lane, Old Highway Road
• A diagonal named for the town to the south, Waverly Street, connecting to Main Street seems like an obvious routing, but there is no evidence for this. The blueprints for paving US 218 through Nashua in 1927 instead use the "old old 218" route straight through on Greeley with one block on Sample. That was bypassed for the pre-Avenue of the Saints route on Addison Boulevard in 1960.
• Nashua to Floyd: US 218 (northbound lanes), Midway Road and B59 (through the late 1950s), vacated diagonal starting about where B59 intersects 218, Old Highway 218, Business US 218, Cedar Crest Lane and vacated extension south to 195th Street, Cedar View Drive (which grabs parts of two alignments), vacated road on the west side of present 218 that runs into Jess Lane, vacated road on north side of US 18/218 (southeast of cemetery), Packard Avenue, 1st Avenue in Floyd, US 218
• The abandoned weigh station at the Woodland Lane intersection was flush-aligned with the old route.
• Floyd to Osage: US 218, Mitchell Line Street, Ocean Avenue, B17, T42, Orchard Lane, T42, IA 9
• On the 1912 and 1914 Mitchell County maps, the 2 miles of T42 running north from Orchard don't exist, and a route using Noble Avenue and 350th Street is marked instead. But T42, also known as Orchard Road, is in the 1921 blueprints through Mitchell County.
• Osage to St. Ansgar (1920-21): IA 9/Main Street, 3rd Street, either Chase or Mechanic streets, 2nd Street (vacated extension between there and the cemetery), Kirkwood Avenue, Red Ball Road, A43, Red Ball Road
• Ironically, this auto trail alignment preserved in today's rural street system was one of the first segments ever rerouted! Present 218 between Osage and St. Ansgar became the route within months of establishment of the system. The construction documents are dated 1921 but the state map was already changed and supervisors' minutes imply that it was either active or on its way by the beginning of 1921, albeit using 420th Street and Indigo Avenue rather than being two straight lines that met at the Stacyville corner.
• Said minutes (Mitchell County Press, February 16) separately reference a point for IA 40 that makes absolutely no sense and has to be an error but I have no idea where they actually mean.
• Osage to St. Ansgar (1921-present): US 218
• Weirdly, this early change was never drawn on the 1914 county map.
• This change made Mitchell the first town to lose a connection to the primary system. It got one back in 1937, though.
• Mitchell and West Mitchell were separate towns until 1954, when residents voted to consolidate. Technically, West Mitchell annexed Mitchell and then renamed itself Mitchell. (Mitchell County Press and Osage News, November 4)
• Based on archives in the Mitchell County Press, there was a serious attempt in 1921 to reroute IA 40 through Stacyville, using T40 and A23. However, nothing came of this, and by that time IA 105 had been created so any change would've affected that route.
• St. Ansgar (1920-21): Train Lane, 4th Street, and School Street
• St. Ansgar (1922-24): US 218, 4th Street, and School Street
• St. Ansgar (1924-32): 4th (US 218), Center, and 2nd streets
• The curve between Park and 2nd streets came with paving in 1932 and was modified in 1988. That means there are four distinguishable routings between the intersection of 4th and Church streets and the north city limits.
• St. Ansgar to state line: US 218
• The state maps are universal in depicting present 218; the 1914 county map (which, again, never got the present route drawn in!) implies Echo Avenue on the other side of the railroad. The present routing (with the possible exception of a mile of Epic Avenue) is true no later than April 1921.
• Related routes other than US 218:
• US 161, which replaced 40 south of Cedar Rapids in 1926
• IA 125, spur to Salem after 40 was straightened south of Mount Pleasant in 1924
• IA 133 (I), spur to Oakland Mills State Park after 40 was straightened south of Mount Pleasant in 1924
• IA 181 (I), spur to Riverside created when 40 was straightened in northern Washington County in 1930; it officially lasted seven months and even had an extension before IA 22 took it over
• IA 255, spur to Orchard created when US 218 was paved in Mitchell County in 1932
• IA 84 (II), 6th Street SW in Cedar Rapids to near the airport; 218 moved there from Bowling Street in 1953 (north of present US 30) and 1956 (south)
• IA 153 (II), road between Coralville and North Liberty replaced by US 218 in 1957
• IA 153 (III), Dubuque Street from downtown North Liberty north to old 218, after the reroute
• Unsigned routes:
• IA 941 (II), old US 30/218 on 16th Avenue SW and 6th Street SW, although the only segment overlapping with IA 40 was west of the now-dead-end of Johnson Avenue
• IA 960 (II), old US 61/218 on their shared segment through Summitville
• IA 965, the 1957-85 route of US 218 between Cedar Rapids and Coralville. Despite its incremental decommissionings, the road is often referred to as "965" today, not even "old 218".
• Avenue of the Saints-related construction:
• IA 116 (II) and IA 431 (I), now Business 218 in Waverly, south and north of IA 3 respectively
• IA 162 (II) and IA 337 (II), old 218 south and southeast of Charles City and old 18/218 northwest of Charles City respectively; parts now Business 218 in Charles City
• IA 254 (II), old 218 in Nashua area
• IA 390 (II), old 218 through Plainfield
• IA 424, old 218 on either side of IA 78
• IA 438, old 218 in Mount Pleasant (1969-2001)
• IA 921 (II), Riverside Drive in Iowa City
• IA 922 (III), Business US 151 in Cedar Rapids (relevant segment: 1st Avenue from 1st Street SW to 9th Street NW)
• IA 923, old 218 in Johnson and Washington counties
• IA 962, a bit of old 218 at the W64 intersection north of Ainsworth
• IA 969 (II), old 218 from the north side of Janesville to IA 57
• IA 972, later renumbered IA 976 (I), Iowa Avenue on north side of Mount Pleasant

NORTH End: Minnesota state line, now US 218 at line, Mitchell County IA/Mower County MN

Facing south on 40 (5/19/04)

There is no reason to believe that 40's original end and 218's present end aren't the same place. For more pictures see the US 218 page.

SOUTH End: Keokuk, Lee County

Facing southeast, but heading south, on 40 (10/4/15)

Facing southeast, but heading south, on 40 (10/24/05)

IA 40 got to Keokuk for sure, but as mentioned at the top of the page, there's no way to know if 40 was signed with IA 20 heading out on what's now US 136. One argument in favor is the ridiculously redundant extension of US 161 to the Des Moines River in 1936 because of "confusion". If it didn't, the present south end of US 218 is the likely place.

Page created 3/4/20; last updated 5/1/22

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