(July 1, 1920-July 1, 1980)
- In 1920, they knew it as: Floyd County's half-a-loaf, or three-quarter-loaf, for not getting the road between Rockford and Marble Rock in the primary system
- We know it as: County Road B60
- Let's get granular:
- On July 10, 1919, the Floyd County supervisors asked the Highway Commission to add the entire "Short Line" from Nora Springs to Rockford to Marble Rock to 2 1/2 miles east of Marble Rock into the primary road system. But the board also said that if the Rockford-Marble Rock segment didn't get included, "the board pledges itself to act favorably" toward petitions wanting paving there. (Rockford Register, July 16)
- In the same issue, "after a part of this article was put into type," the county received word from Ames that the Rockford-Nora Springs road was added, as was the Marble Rock road, just in time for Floyd County's vote on hard-surfaced roads July 22. The Rockford road became IA 53. The Marble Rock road became IA 54.
WEST End: Marble Rock, Floyd County
Once IA 54 was extended into Marble Rock (1920 pop. 483, 2010 pop. 307), it came in on B60 and turned south one block on Main Street to end at Beeler Street. The school shown below (photo 7/29/10) is one block south and two blocks east of that.
According to an excerpt from a town history published in the June 10, 1994, Nora Springs Advertiser and Rockford Register, the school building was completed in 1906, the gym to the left (not shown) dates to 1935-36, and 1958 was the last graduating class, a year after the Rudd-Rockford-Marble Rock school district formed. Additional newspaper research points to this school being closed after the 1990-91 school year, when a new K-12 building opened in Rockford. That came nearly three years after the previous high school in Rockford burned to the ground in below-zero weather. Wiring in the industrial arts building was cited as the cause of the blaze on February 4, 1989.
Point of interest
Marble
Rock Letter.
I am once more at home but for how long I am not able to say. This has
been very disagreeable weather for everybody — farmers cannot thresh or
make hay to advantage but the threshing in this vicinity is nearly done.
Oats were a good crop but the yield is not as good as some
had guessed. The new school house is going up some but not as
satisfactory as it would be but for this bad weather.
— Unsigned, but from the "correspondent," Rockford
Register, September 7, 1905
EAST End: IA 14, still IA 14, Floyd County
Three miles north of the intersection is the extinct map dot of Roseville, where only a Catholic church and a school that was used for RRMR classes at least for a time remain.
Page created 3/4/20