SOUTH
Detailed maps of the historic routes of IA 57 and 58 are here. Detailed maps of the historic routes of IA 57 and 58 in the Waterloo/Cedar Falls area are on this page.
SOUTH End: Direct merge into US 63, Hudson, Black Hawk County
The 58-63 intersection is an interesting one. Diagrams:
Numbers are for photos below.
If you want to go to 63 north from 58 south, or 63 south to 58 north, you must use D35 (see bottom).
1) Facing south on 58 - June 2002 / March 2005
Sometime in 2004 someone must have knocked the "End" off, because now the shield is in place but "End" is 6 inches underneath it (right).
2) 58 and 63 south traffic merge. Until 2000 this was reversed; the yellow sign was on the other side, reading 'This lane ends merge right." (It's actually the same sign with a new direction pasted on it.) The new arrangement makes more sense.
3) Facing north on 63 at the split. Picture 2 is of the signs on the left.
At lower right is the second of two "North 63 [up and diagonal right]" signs, which could have a full diagonal arrow instead.
3a) Closeup of signs at right and LGS before intersection (taken behind location of picture 3)
The Hudson city limits are just after the intersection, after the stop sign on 58 and within a short distance on 63. Further north is a leaving-town LGS for Waterloo and New Hampton, which is odd because it's in the middle of town.
4) Historic split of 63 and 58. Until 1961, US 63 went through Hudson on Washington Street and between Hudson and Waterloo on Eldora Road, eventually running into 4th Street in Waterloo. Later, 63 was put on a new alignment - Sergeant Road outside of Hudson - intersecting only three Hudson streets in its wide path. Before the reroute, this picture would have been taken on 63 just before it went to the right. This was NOT the end of 58 because for about 35 years it ran from Grundy Center to Cedar Falls via Hudson; when the duplex was first made, the roads split farther north at 5th Street (see below). This makes signage an interesting situation: Either you're going north and south on a road signed east-west, or you're going northwest when the road is marked south (between Reinbeck and Grundy Center) and vice versa. (Or directions could have changed at the present east end of IA 175.) This is only a few yards to the north of picture 1.
5) Mileage sign heading south on 63. Hudson's sign gives the distance to Oskaloosa, Traer's is for Ottumwa.
Surrounding area information: Junction D35
Facing south on 63 / Facing south on 58
These two sets of signs are about 1/2 mile apart on the southbound routes at D35 (see map at top). The "To North 58" sign was straighter until a while before the picture was taken.
Surrounding area information: The evolution of a school
Aerial photos: ca. 1935 / 1994 / 2004 (ortho.gis.iastate.edu) (widen window to see side-by-side)
The bottom of the T-bar in each photo is aligned to the north face of a brick building. Each photo covers precisely the same area, spanning 70 years. At left is the 1930s building for the Hudson school district, on the south side of town; the town itself is only about three blocks wide. The north-south road is Washington Street; in the left photo it had just recently become US 63/IA 58. (Instead of a split at the south side of town, 63 and 58 split at 5th Street.) As the town grew, more buildings were added on the south and east sides of the school. As Hudson's popularity as a bedroom community to Waterloo grew, the decision was made to make an entirely new high school building. That building is the tan-roofed structure on the west (left) side of Washington in the 2004 photo. As you can also see in the 2004 photo, the original building has been torn down.
To the IA 58 North historic ends / To IA 58's current north end
*Inaugural Highway End*
All pictures by me: First, 6/24/02; second and eighth, 3/15/05; third, fourth, sixth, ninth, and tenth, 5/20/03; fifth and seventh, 11/21/01
Page created 11/25/01; last updated 4/30/07