Iowa Highway Ends Annex

Road trips, maps, history, miscellaneous geography, and assorted other time-wasters

Iowa highway shield gallery

Iowa county road shield gallery

Iowa bridge timeline

A graphical timeline of the Missouri and Mississippi River bridges' histories, including openings, closings, significant closures, and toll eras.

History of four-lane roads in Iowa

Month-by-month openings of rural four-lane highways, from the 1940s to the present, with maps every five years.

Iowa's 1968 highway plan

The Iowa Highway Commission had grand plans for four-lane roads beyond the interstate system. It would take decades, however, for that vision to even come partially true. This page compares lines sketched out in 1968 with what has, or has not, happened since. Many of these corridors were eventually constructed as part of a commitment the state DOT made in 1996.

Highway Evolution

The "single-page" chronologies include every map, in order, with changes listed underneath. The Sioux City, Council Bluffs/Omaha, Waterloo-Cedar Falls, and Tama/Benton maps can be viewed separately or together, or in sequence if you type each of the years in order. Also available is a color-coded set of maps for IA 57 and 58 through the years.

Waterloo-Cedar Falls (single page)
1925 1933 1941 1963 1978 1988 1997 2006
Sioux City (single page)
1925 1932 1943 1956 1972 1990 2002 2005
Council Bluffs/Downtown Omaha (single page)
1924 1933 1940 1963 1973 1982 2002 2005
Tama and Benton counties (single page)
1925 1934 1940 1955 1975 2000 2005
Ottumwa (single page)
1928 1938 1958 1968 1998 2008
Iowa highways 57 and 58 (maps only)
1920, 1927, 1932 (2), 1933, 1936, 1969, 1991, 2004
Fort Dodge Oskaloosa Glenwood

Road trip photo galleries

Photo galleries of some of the longer trips I've made, organized chronologically.

Iowa TV station guide

A project years in the making, this table lists every Iowa county's inclusion on network affiliates, and these maps show the data in a graphical manner. Just what TV stations do you get in Farmington, Atlantic, Lansing, Pocahontas, or Larchwood? The table page includes background and notes on the project; the maps page lists the launch date or year of every station.

Iowa's southern border

It's not straight. There was almost a war over it. And Van Buren County got the short end of the stick all the way around. Read about Sullivan's Line and the war that never (but could have) used the line "Forty-Thirty-five or Fight!" here.

Iowa's northern border

Although it's straightforward today, the northern boundary was not settled until just before Iowa became a state. In addition, the sources I have found can't seem to agree on just WHERE the lines were supposed to be drawn. This page is a study of those various descriptions.

Iowa's geographic center

An easy thing to find, right? Depends on who you ask - and if you let Lee County drag it southward. It's in Story County either way, but more than 10 miles northeast or southeast of central Ames, and discussed here.

Ontario: Iowa's eastern neighbor

Canada's farther south than you think. In fact, the UNI-Dome is farther north than the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel and Niagara Falls is just south of Postville. This map superimposes the province over a county outline (that's somewhat close to scale).

Iowa vs. southern New England

Pretend that an athletic rivalry between Independence and Clarinda consumes the nation (or, depending on your point of view, is forced down the nation's throats). The distance between those two towns is slightly larger than the distance between Boston and New York City. (In fact, the east end of US 20 is hundreds of yards away from Fenway Park.) This map moves Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island 21 longitude degrees west to be on top of Iowa with corresponding latitude lines. Driving I-95 from Maine to New Jersey is the equivalent of going from Castalia to Villisca via Belle Plaine, and Hartford is only slightly north of Des Moines (Polk City, to be precise).

A few districts in the Iowa House and many in the Iowa Senate are larger than the state of Rhode Island. See, for example, House District 96, Senate District 29, and Senate District 4 (bonus: Compare Rhode Island to Kossuth County).

Congressional district state maps, statehood to present

Color-coded maps divide Iowa counties by their representation in Congress, a representation that peaked at the turn of the 20th century and has been downhill since. Also included are maps of counties Iowa's four most senior congressmen have served.

Congressional districts by county, statehood to present

Tables list each county's by color, with the same color code as the maps on the other page. Many counties in southeast Iowa stayed in District 1 from statehood to the 1992 redistricting, and others shuffled around nearly every time.

Jeff Morrison's clinched highways

A state-by-state listing of all the interstate and US highways that I have traveled the complete length of (in each state), plus overall percentages of major interstates. The list is a variation on similar listings for me at AARoads.com and Clinched Highway Mapping's websites.

Page created 6/1/05 (as the Iowa Geography Page); last updated 11/13/08

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